The snow exposed to cars is covered in grimy residue, while the snow away from traffic remains clean.
That rationale is just stupid. It is indeed a lot of dirt, as every tire caries dirt and many tires = many dirt.
Of course it also includes the other shit. I am just not so sure about the claim that “this is no dirt or else it would be also visible on the top road”
I think the point could be stated more clearly by only using the bottom picture.
The snow that is scraped from the road is dirty, while the snow from the pavement is … less dirty. It might be dirt or exhaust or whatever. Roads and pavements are just filthy.
More interestingly, if you live in a place where the piles don’t thaw quickly, you can watch the road side of the snow getting progressively more dirty from the ongoing exhaust even if the road is not scraped afterwards. At the end of the season, the roadside snow piles will look charcoal black. It’s most noticable at crossings where cars run the engines at red light. Had it all been just dirt, it would look the same everywhere along the road, but it doesn’t.
I’m not denying that cars are dirty either, but it’s also easy that the bottom pic could look like the top pic and vice versa based on when the photos are taken. Timing of the snowfall, if one road gets sanded/salted and not the other, etc.
In places where lots of people walk, the snow is white. In places where people cross a road, the walking paths leading from the crosswalk are brown.
The “dirt” comes from cars and is highly toxic.
It’s usually sand. The snow is dirty where they put a lot of sand if people walk there. I hate cars too, but it’s not all from cars
Sure buddy
He isn’t wrong
Cars exhaust contains nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water vapour, oxygen, argon, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, unburnt hydrocarbons, methane, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, lead, platinum, palladium, rhodium, nickel, copper, zinc and chromium. These drift around, settling on roads. Albeit in trace amounts.
These are in turn washed into storm waterways and creeks where the heavy metals end up in the sediment.
Car tires and plastics used in roads (cats eyes for example) are also causing major microplastic pollution, again because it again washes into waterways and accumulates.
In 2004 it was confirmed that creatures at the bottom of the food chain ie bivalves, polychaete worms, sea cucumbers, amphipods, isopods, lugworms, oligochaetes, chironomid larvae and deposit feeders etc are eating that shit up.
Which, when consumed by predators, bio accumulates in their flesh which we in turn eat.
Incidentally asianometry just released a video on this incredibly fucked up and depressing topic.
Which, when consumed by predators, bio accumulates in their flesh which we in turn eat.
you eat predators?? even among people who foolishly and cruelly consume animals that is recognized as a dumb thing to do. herbivores are dumb to eat for the exact same reason of bio-accumulation but people don’t seem to grasp that.
Plus you have particulates from the tires themselves to add to that.
Look at the backs of some large trucks and you’ll see the sort of crud they’re emitting just sticking to them, too.
the forbidden Oreo ice cream
As a kid in the city, the bottom picture was pretty normal to me.
I now love a bit farther away from high traffic areas and it sort of looks like the above. I still see the nasty residue.
I moved in the country, and if I say jog on a back road here, a single vehicle might go by, and fouls the air for a couple of minutes. In the city I wouldn’t have even noticed it, there would be a thousand times that in the air at any given moment.
Anywhere you see piles of snow it should be turned into pedestrian only space (since it’s obvious the cars don’t need it)
Before it fell off the ice stuck behind my tire was pitch black
