The snow exposed to cars is covered in grimy residue, while the snow away from traffic remains clean.
Look at the backs of some large trucks and you’ll see the sort of crud they’re emitting just sticking to them, too.
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.
Plus you have particulates from the tires themselves to add to that.
Removed by mod
dumb to eat
I think you mean delicious to eat 😅
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
