About 2,000,000 tons per year of tire wear particles (TWP) are released globally
into the environment, and questions have been raised about its presence in ambient air and sediment.
An international consortium of the eleven major tire manufacturers began an industry wide
sustainability project to understand the potential for human and ecological health effects
from the manufacturing and use of vehicle tires.
Between 2005 and 2010, ChemRisk has been responsible for designing and managing the research
efforts to characterize the environmental health impact of the chemicals used in the tire
manufacturing process and the tire wear particles (TWP) generated during use of tires.
Studies in a number of key areas are being conducted in Europe, North America and Asia.
Multiple aspects of this research were presented by Sweet et al., McAtee et al., Kreider et al.,
and Panko et al. in 2008 and 2009 at :
– Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry - Tampa, FL 2008
– ACS Rubber Division Technical Meeting – Louisville, KY 2008
– EUROTOX – Dresden Germany 2009
– ACS Rubber Division Technical Meeting – Pittsburgh, PA 2009