So if you take someone in the United States, driving an average of 25,000 km per year, they are generating something like 2,750 g of microplastics. If that same person mountain bikes 25 km per week for a year (1,300 km) they are generating something like 46 g of microplastics. I’m all for making mountain biking more environmentally friendly, but it looks like a rounding error on our microplastic emissions when looking at other sources. Combined with giving people more reason to protect nature, I’d guess it’s a net positive. Here in the US, wet need to fix our land use and transportation, as car dependency is not compatible with a livable planet.
So if you take someone in the United States, driving an average of 25,000 km per year, they are generating something like 2,750 g of microplastics. If that same person mountain bikes 25 km per week for a year (1,300 km) they are generating something like 46 g of microplastics. I’m all for making mountain biking more environmentally friendly, but it looks like a rounding error on our microplastic emissions when looking at other sources. Combined with giving people more reason to protect nature, I’d guess it’s a net positive. Here in the US, wet need to fix our land use and transportation, as car dependency is not compatible with a livable planet.