I was in the rubber industry for 5 years as a researcher and believe me, it's no God damn "mystery". We (a very large tire manufacturer you have heard of) spent several million a year coming up with plausible deniability for what we were doing to avoid this, mainly using more natural rubber. We spent more on advertising the "green" natural rubber tires then we did on actually manufacturing them.<p>Sorry to be cynical but I am so sick of this BS where big industry pollutes for decades while academics are eating right out of their hands then they pretend like it's a surprise when they "discover" the source of the pollution.<p>We have know FOR DECADES that tire pollution is arguably WORSE for the environment than tail pipe emissions. Don't buy this BS as if this is new research, it's just been successful ignored until it couldn't. Same as recycling plastics but ya'all ain't ready to talk about that scam yet apparently as I keep seeing people diligently filling their blue buckets with unrecyclables as if they are "doing their part".