Tiny particles that rub off of tyres are likely harming freshwater and coastal estuary ecosystems. The first study, published in Chemosphere last month, found that exposure to tyre particles had harmful effects on organisms from coastal estuaries, while the second, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, found the same for freshwater organisms. Both studies grow out of concern with the number of tire particles in the environment.

After a lifetime of rolling along the highway, running over gravel and jaring against potholes, the average tyre will lose around 30 percent of its tread. This means that materials from tyres – which include synthetic rubber, filling agents, oils and other additives – join the other synthetic particles currently polluting the environment.

Meanwhile, in Australia, a new journal publication has found that a toxic chemical released from tyres as they wear down on roads and implicated in mass deaths of salmon in the United States has been found in an Australian waterway for the first time.

The Guardian reports that scientists detected the compound – known as 6PPD-quinone – among a cocktail of chemicals and hundreds of kilograms of tyre particles washed into a creek from a motorway during storms.

Researchers around the world are scrambling to understand the effect of the chemicals and particles from tyres after solving a mystery of years of mass deaths of coho salmon in Seattle. The commonly used tyre additive 6PPD – which transforms into 6PPD-quinone – was turning streams toxic for salmon. Earlier this month, scientists in Canada found the chemical was also toxic to two trout species, but at much higher concentrations.

More information on these stories can be found here and here.