The Teardown
Friday :: May 3rd, 2024
👋 Hi, this is Chris with another issue of The Teardown. In every issue, I cover how we evolve in concert with the technology that enables our day-to-day lives. If you’d like to get emails like this in your inbox every week, hit the subscribe button below.
A U-Turn Intro
For the second week in a row, I’ve scrapped something I planned to release in favor of a more pressing interest: how safe are the things you touch, consume, and use every day?
All of us live in environments swirling with good and bad things for our health. You’re supposed to soak up sunlight, but not too much. You need to drink lots of water every day, but what if that water isn’t clean enough? Food czars tell us to eat a healthy combination of foods, but from what containers, surfaces, or other hazardous sources?
Lots of things are better than they used to be. And, lots of things now seem worse than we realized or estimated in the past.
Not Just The Tailpipe
In a recent Phys.org article titled Tire Toxicity Faces Fresh Scrutiny After Salmon Die-Offs, Jim Robbin’s highlights an issue that might not be on your radar:
For decades, concerns about automobile pollution have focused on what comes out of the tailpipe. Now, researchers and regulators say, we need to pay more attention to toxic emissions from tires as vehicles roll down the road.
Automobiles are probably, on the whole, cleaner than they were in the past. There is more regulation around tailpipe emission. But, of course, humans and their companies don’t always follow rules. Sometimes we interpret rules in a different manner than the rule creators, leading to unintended consequences. Other times, we employ private attorneys to find loopholes in rules. In an ideal world, companies aren’t blatant cheaters. But, of course, you can read all about something like that in this BBC piece about the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal.
A detail from that scandal highlighted is an intuitive but not always discussed problem: corporate structures aren’t really about you, the customer. They prioritize two key things: making money, and adhering to the needs and well-being of their shareholders. Sure, there are things like DEI, and corporate responsibility statements, and blah blah, but all of that structure is about making money for many businesses. Meeting and exceeding regulatory standards means more money flows to the company’s coffers, right?
You might’ve concluded that I’m cynical to the extreme and don’t really believe what I just wrote. There is some truth to the rebuttal. I’ve spent my entire career working for companies that were built to generate profits, not smiles. Maybe smiles, but definitely after profits. I do not think the capitalist model needs to be locked away for good by any means.
That said, a simple profit strategy is to make more money than you spend. You could, for example, earn one billion dollars and spend only one million dollars, leaving a lot leftover for toys. But, of course, you want to maximize the value of that one million. So, let’s say that you make a kids toy with plastic from Company A for $10 in raw material, or from Company B for $5 in raw material. Assuming (in a vacuum) that there aren’t other purchase criteria, you choose the more inexpensive material. That very rudimentary scenario says nothing about the quality of the plastic from each manufacturer
Suppose instead you manufacturer tires, those rubber things that let us drive our Escalades two blocks down the road. People need tires on their cars. Also, just to broaden the scope of use, people need tires on bikes, e-bikes, scooters. You know, those things that are supposed to save us from all of that nasty tailpipe stuff. You replace a tire when it wears out. Simple.
Of course, as a manufacturer, you need to balance the replacement period of the tire with the perception of that life. A tire that wears out from a year of normal (e.g. typical suburban use) driving isn’t going to produce a happy customer. But, also, a tire that wears on some very long timeline - thirty years - isn’t good for your business unless you constantly find new customers. A never-ending search isn’t more fun than cultivating new and existing customers.
What you do is add (and maybe conveniently invent) a chemical to the tire to ensure it lasts long enough. Everyone is happy. You’ve derived a cost-effective method to boost your tire reliability reputation while ensuring your customers will come back in the not-distant future. Happy customers help funnel new customers to you.
People also start testing your tires in parallel. Someone tries them out for performance. Maybe another person for reliability. And then a pesky scientist gets involved who concludes that the tire’s composition isn’t quite right. Maybe it’s not working as well as it should and needs reformulation. Or, maybe, it’s working really well but it’s kind of, well, toxic. From the article:
At the top of the list of worries is a chemical called 6PPD, which is added to rubber tires to help them last longer. When tires wear on pavement, 6PPD is released. It reacts with ozone to become a different chemical, 6PPD-q, which can be extremely toxic—so much so that it has been linked to repeated fish kills in Washington state.
That is unfortunate conclusion. It’s confusing enough to discuss and agonize over tailpipe emissions. Those are the source of many years of mind-numbing bureaucracy at the highest levels of government. Now, there is increasing evidence that our beloved cars are emitting two hazardous things: exhaust gases from engine combustion, and particles and chemicals from tire use/wear.
What’s also unfortunate and not surprising is the way that this was discovered, at least by the public:
The chemical was identified by a team of researchers, led by scientists at Washington State University and the University of Washington, who were trying to determine why coho salmon returning to Seattle-area creeks to spawn were dying in large numbers.
Working for the Washington Stormwater Center, the scientists tested some 2,000 substances to determine which one was causing the die-offs, and in 2020 they announced they'd found the culprit: 6PPD.
The Yurok Tribe in Northern California, along with two other West Coast Native American tribes, have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the chemical. The EPA said it is considering new rules governing the chemical. "We could not sit idle while 6PPD kills the fish that sustain us," said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, in a statement. "This lethal toxin has no place in any salmon-bearing watershed."
This chemical - 6PPD - reminded me of another family of chemicals that used to be in just about everything: PFAS. Here’s a snippet from Wikipedia’s entry about PFAS:
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS[1] or PFASs[2]) are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorineatoms attached to an alkyl chain. The PubChem database lists more than 6 million unique compounds in this group.[3] PFASs started being used in the mid-20th century to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water.[4] They are used in a variety of products including waterproof clothing, furniture, adhesives, food packaging, heat-resistant non-stick cooking surfaces, and the insulation of electrical wire.[4] They have played a key economic role for companies such as DuPont, 3M, and W. L. Gore & Associates that use them to produce widely known materials such as Teflon or Gore-Tex.
Many PFAS such as PFOS, PFOA are a health and environmental concern because they do not break down via natural processes and are commonly described as persistent organic pollutants or "forever chemicals".[4][5] They can also move through soils and contaminate drinking water sources and can build up (bioaccumulate) in fish and wildlife.[4] Residues have been detected in humans and wildlife
This New York Times search returns dozens of articles about prior knowledge, rules, violations, and lawsuits, all tied to PFAS. And in the PFAS world, there’s not much wrongdoing and honesty, just oopsies:
The chemical and manufacturing giant 3M reached a $10.3 billion settlement on Thursday with U.S. cities and towns over their claims that the company contaminated drinking water with so-called forever chemicals used in everything from firefighting foam to nonstick coatings.
Under the sweeping settlement, 3M said it would pay out the money over 13 years to any cities, counties and others across the country to test for and clean up perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, in public water supplies.
3M, which is facing about 4,000 lawsuits by states and municipalities for PFAS contamination, did not admit any liability. The company said the settlement covered remediation to water suppliers that detected the chemical “at any level or may do so in the future.”
In a statement, Mike Roman, the chairman and chief executive of 3M, called the agreement “an important step forward for 3M” and said it built on “our announcement that we will exit all PFAS manufacturing by the end of 2025.”
Wikipedia goes on to describe how PFAS chemicals were introduced in the 1940s but only studied relevant to health since the early 2000s. Science was, of course, not as advanced as it is today, or even in the early aughts. The chemicals didn't appear to have any adverse health effects when they were first formulated.
We’ve since learned that PFAS chemicals probably aren’t good for health. So, what about tire particles? From the Phys.org article:
California is also studying a request by the California Stormwater Quality Association to classify tires containing zinc, a heavy metal, as a priority product, requiring manufacturers to search for an alternative. Zinc is used in the vulcanization process to increase the strength of the rubber.
When it comes to tire particles, though, there hasn't been any action, even as the problem worsens with the proliferation of electric cars. Because of their quicker acceleration and greater torque, electric vehicles wear out tires faster and emit an estimated 20% more tire particles than the average gas-powered car.
A recent study in Southern California found tire and brake emissions in Anaheim accounted for 30% of PM2.5, a small-particulate air pollutant, while exhaust emissions accounted for 19%. Tests by Emissions Analytics have found that tires produce up to 2,000 times as much particle pollution by mass as tailpipes.
These particles end up in water and air and are often ingested. Ultrafine particles, even smaller than PM2.5, are also emitted by tires and can be inhaled and travel directly to the brain. New research suggests tire microparticles should be classified as a pollutant of "high concern."
In a report issued last year, researchers at Imperial College London said the particles could affect the heart, lungs, and reproductive organs and cause cancer.
Let’s stop here for a second for one quick tangent. Zinc is a heavy metal, sure. But also, you need some of it too. From a Harvard reference article:
Zinc is a trace mineral, meaning that the body only needs small amounts, and yet it is necessary for almost 100 enzymes to carry out vital chemical reactions. It is a major player in the creation of DNA, growth of cells, building proteins, healing damaged tissue, and supporting a healthy immune system. [1] Because it helps cells to grow and multiply, adequate zinc is required during times of rapid growth, such as childhood, adolescence, and pregnancy. Zinc is also involved with the senses of taste and smell.
The problem is too much zinc, not zinc as a substance in isolation. If only we could point these things out in our writing.
Anyways, this article doesn’t have a ton of concrete information about 6PPD’s health impacts. The research is new compared to something like smoking. So, at some point, perhaps we’ll conclude that 6PPD and related variants are terrible for health and ban them from use.
But then what?
There’s Is Always Something Else
My very cynical (or, realistic) closing is really that simple: a business will do what it can to minimize a cost. That approach isn’t harmful in many situations. Minimizing costs might mean that a product gets stuck in this over-simplified vicious cycle.
Product constructed as inexpensively as possible and released
Someone finds problem with product
Company executes confidential process to assess impact, restructure product, again minimizing cost, in parallel hope that uproar subsides
Another way of thinking about this? PFAS chemicals aren’t or shouldn’t be in most water bottles you use today. But are you confident that there isn’t some other issue lurking in your water bottle? Or what about surfaces, materials, and objects throughout your house?
I know that this conclusion sounds like excess paranoia. A skill in life is learning to live with things you can’t control. The truth is I can’t eliminate bad things from every area of life. The modern world would be pretty difficult absent so many of the things I use and need day-to-day.
There are lots of things I can control. For example, I’ll store food in glass containers - not plastic. I’ll cook with stainless steel, not non-stick pots and pans. I’ll drink water from glass, not plastic. I’ll pack kids lunches in silicone or glass containers. And, I’ll try to buy and store food that isn’t created or packaged in as many processed materials as possible.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I can buy a car without wheels.