Where the rubber meets the road: Emerging environmental impacts of tire wear particles and their chemical cocktails.

About 3 billion new tires are produced each year and about 800 million tires become waste annually. Global dependence upon tires produced from natural rubber and petroleum-based compounds represents a persistent and complex environmental problem with only partial and often-times, ineffective solutions. Tire emissions may be in the form of whole tires, tire particles, and chemical compounds, each of which is transported through various atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic routes in the natural and built environments.

Advancing Alternative Analysis: Integration of Decision Science.

Background: Decision analysis-a systematic approach to solving complex problems-offers tools and frameworks to support decision making that are increasingly being applied to environmental challenges. Alternatives analysis is a method used in regulation and product design to identify, compare, and evaluate the safety and viability of potential substitutes for hazardous chemicals.

Objectives: We assessed whether decision science may assist the alternatives analysis decision maker in comparing alternatives across a range of metrics.

Passage of fiproles and imidacloprid from urban pest control uses through wastewater treatment plants in northern California, USA.

Urban pest control insecticides-specifically fipronil and its 4 major degradates (fipronil sulfone, sulfide, desulfinyl, and amide), as well as imidacloprid-were monitored during drought conditions in 8 San Francisco Bay (San Francisco, CA, USA) wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In influent and effluent, ubiquitous detections were obtained in units of ng/L for fipronil (13-88 ng/L), fipronil sulfone (1-28 ng/L), fipronil sulfide (1-5 ng/L), and imidacloprid (58-306 ng/L). Partitioning was also investigated; in influent, 100% of imidacloprid and 62 ± 9% of total fiproles (fipronil and degradates) were present in the dissolved state, with the balance being bound to filter-removable particulates.