To the fields. The Environmental Impact of cars is the subject of heated debate in europe and elsewhere. Everyone is talking about emissions. But lets talk about tires theyre forty percent rubber when theyre new. But then comes the daily road routine and thats where the problems start. Every time that rolls along the road get slowly but surely warm down. What happens to the particles of one off whether they end up. On says starts where the abrasion takes place. What are we looking at. Dust from tires from brake pads and from the roadway. Various materials come together here tire just falls into the category of fine sediment. You can barely see it its like fine particulates matter. That gets washed off the road and seeps into the ground all along the embankment physica. Rainwater deposits dust particles from roadways in the upper layer of soil that includes tire dust and all the smaller pollutant particles that stick to it. Eventually so much road dust accumulates that the rainwater no longer drains off. Hydraulic engineer cardiff entire shows us how the highways agencies solve that problem they scrape off the surface soil every five to ten years that means more than two million tons of soil are removed each year in germany alone. Samples of the soil and allies if its heavily contaminated it goes into a landfill but most of it winds up as filler for construction projects. Rainwater runoff along many of the busiest highways in germany is directed into special filtration plants called different shows us a facility he helped to build. While another light fluid settle at the top thats why theres a baffled the rear of the water has to flow beneath it while the oil remains on the surface. Is in the tiredest is in the fine sediment or the fine of the core sediment are held back here and some of the fine sediment does get through and reaches the soil filter base in alt. The reeds bind any residual tire dust and other pollutants. Before the filter water comes out of the basin here and is then directed into the seepage reservoir where it can spread out over a wide area so that any residues that havent been captured and processed are retained here. So here it seems tire dust doesnt pose a danger for people or the environment. But then we meet researchers from the university of s. And we drive to another sedimentation basin one that looks more like a pond. Here to tire particles are meant to sink to the bottom as with the big highway purification plant but the waste water flows into a stream. The scientists want to find out if tiredest is a scaping the basin and flushed away so get hot chatting or takes a sample from the layers of sediment. He understands or is also investigating whether the animals that live here are affected by pollutants. Theres still no standard method for detecting tire dust. When there is tire dust theres always a raised level of zinc we measure the concentration of zinc in the sediment samples and the animals. That way we get an idea of whether tiredest has indeed ended up in this stream of. Tire dust doesnt only contain zinc but also heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. Is all that found in the sediment or even in the little crustaceans living in the stream. Have you found evidence of tire dust. Our initial results show that zinc is present in varying concentrations we can see very clearly from our test results that the animals have indeed absorbed it. We see the corresponding concentrations of zinc and also of cadmium and lead we found all these elements in the animals. And the scientists from essen have tested hundreds of samples and found that tire dust can be found in streams fed from highway filtration facilities. In some places highway runoff isnt treated at all resulting in high levels of pollution. Thats not immediately fatal for some organisms such as roundworms but it can pose a threat to the fragile balance of the ecosystems of the affected bodies of water. Says more research is needed into tire dust since the problem isnt going to solve itself. Or. That many substances are broken down through micro biological activity by bacteria but that doesnt happen with plastic entire dust. They just keep on accumulating in the environment and as the deposits form they eventually get transported somewhere else because that will put people thinking that most of the dust ends up in the soil alongside the highways there are many organisms in the soil there that come into contact with particles of tire dust such as earthworms they burrow through the soil and plough it up other organisms live off the earthworms and plants are also affected of course. The closer food crops are planted to roads the greater the chance those elements will end up being absorbed by the fruits or vegetables that a plant of their good. We know the tire dust can be transported over large distances but theres been Little Research into its effect once its washed into the sea either on the seabed or the water above it. It happens to all of them during its lifetime attire rolls over thousands of kilometers in all kinds of weather on all kinds of roads. The trade wears down then its time to get new tires. But what to do with the old ones. There are a forty six million cars in germany and about twice as many people. So about half the population has a car on average car owners buy a new set of tires every four years and throw away the old ones. That works out of one used tire of her own and. The question is what should be done with all those tires. Dump them into the sea was the recommendation of United States scientists in the one nine hundred seventy s. They have. The idea of creating an artificial reef in florida using two million used tires. Other countries followed their lead and spent lots of money building reefs of tires but theyve proved to be an ecological disaster me hardly any plants or animals settled on the artificial reefs in currents and waves displaced countless tires many crashed into delicate corals and destroyed them. In two thousand and seven the u. S. Military started to clean up project to remove the failed fake florida reef. Me but about seven hundred thousand tires are still on the sea floor there. So what else can you do with old tires what happens to them nowadays. They often wind up on the road again this time mixed into asphalt. First the tires are shredded. Into ever smaller pieces the rubber is separated from the metal and is then ground into granules. The crumpled rubber is mixed with regular Asphalt Concrete to create noise reducing silent us fall to. Shredded tires are also used to make running tracks and artificial grass. To dampen vibrations in electricity pylons and live on in various guises in washing machines and cars. As insulating mats theyre laid under flooring in houses. And offer cows a cushy place to rest. But one can go further and break tires down into real materials or. The process is called pyrolysis scrap tires or roasted and broken down into carbon black char steel reveals an oil. Gass the technology is pretty new. The pyrolysis system will set you back at least twenty eight thousand dollars. But scrap tires dont have to be taken apart or turned into crumble to find a new purpose intact tires make great planters. Or weights to keep the cover on stores of animal feed. From those for boats. But in germany the majority of old tires wind up in cement factories where theyre burned in rotary furnaces to generate power used tires make good fuel releasing even more energy than coal so using old tires as fuel is still the best way to dispose of them. But were still waiting for the perfect recycling method. And where did all that rubber that goes into our tires come from in the first place. Cultural or Natural Rubber is the fluid known as latex it comes from rubber trees that are grown in huge plantations mainly in southeast asia. For example in thailand as demand for rubber rises plantations are growing ever larger. Hilly region in southern thailand. Rubber plantations have long thrived down on the plains here but now theyre spreading out on to the slopes. As asias economies boom these natural forests are falling victim to the expansion. Here theyre harvesting a highly. Creative raw material latex used for rubber. Enormous demand means rubber farmers like mana in mar are making good money. But on his plantation he keeps coming across scenes of destruction trees trampled down or stripped of their bark guaranteeing their swift death. Munna in martinos whose eating the bark. From them that at the elephants often come into my plantation that they keep me from working on my trees because elephants a very dangerous you know that and that elavil either when you come across them you have to stay really calm and slowly but smugly back away. Asias growing prosperity is generating an insatiable demand for tires each and every one of them made almost entirely from Natural Rubber but what effect does that have on the environment a question german agro ecologist Francisco Hari has set out to answer. She makes regular visits to the farmers here. The elephants look for food on the plantations because their forest habitat is shrinking. And in their search for food and water they encroach on the rubber farms which upsets the farmers. I find. It a huge amount they need around one hundred fifty kilos a day and have to get that somehow or other that means especially when its dry and Forest Resources are depleted the Elephants Head straight for the plantation also because they simply have to eat. And they leave serious damage in their wake. And then one time and then a thumb came into a newly planted nursery and destroyed three hundred young trees in a single night in a fifth of my plantation going on why. He farmers must wait until a rubber tree is at least seven years old before they can tap it tappings a delicate business that requires a very soft touch at the top or cuts too deeply he damages the tree if the cut is too shallow the sap doesnt flow properly. I never used to earn much with rubber but now its profitable which is why i planted more when i took over from my father fifteen years ago we had five hundred trees and now we have three times as many. Mana in my returns home with his latest harvest. The sap has dried into chunks that rubber producer middle men pay a good price for. To make their work easier plantation owners get rid of the vegetation surrounding the trees. Some and very much use herbicides because they like to keep things tidy and at the same time it makes the rubber easier to cultivate so the farmers have to get in close to the trees to do their work and obviously the undergrowth gets in the way its easier without the undergrowth. But maintaining the undergrowth on the plantations would actually help defuse the situation with the invading elephants. Francisco harvey has noticed that the elephants arent especially keen on rubber. They leave the trees alone when they find Something Better in the undergrowth such as grass or bananas. And the giant animals rarely eat young trees when theyre out for aging they generally only trample them because theyre in the way. So Practical Solutions are necessary to keep them out of the nursery. As an affleck haha and in a fun in africa elephants are terrified of one aggressive the species once the farmers there use that knowledge to make socalled b. Fences that are connected with wires to the beehives they start to shake whenever the elephants try to get through more than that causes that these disparate mount and sting the elephants so the elephants learn to keep their distance from one of them to one. Rubber plantations have grown enormously in asia by sixty percent in the last fifteen years alone. And with no end in sight to the boom the plantations will continue expanding. And so will the search for solutions. We ask you on twitter and facebook who you think and saw the rubber problem scientists car makers. Process most wants to see biologists and chemists looking for alternatives. Well but hope he says that no one can solve the problem on their own he cites cash tag Plant Research which presents projects on alternative river sources like dandelions. Randolph x. Asks about progress in recycling and synthetic rubber. And nigel posts the suggestion that tire manufacturers could produce smaller car tires as a way of saving a lot of rubber. Now we move on to another natural substance thats making quite a splash among fans. Of urine Central America wants to know more about it. And when one does from san salvador wants to know. Why is there more inside a can canards. Getting into coconuts can be quite a challenge even for the most child of creatures. Its equally hard to crack one a coconut is classified as a stone fruit its structured like this. A tough outer skin gives way to a fibrous husk. Then you get to the nut which in cases the coconut embryo. The surrounding white coconut flash and the Coconut Water both nourish the embryo until it germinates. What one function of Coconut Water is to store nutrients in a single fruit contains about a liter of water. Coconut water shouldnt be confused with coconut milk used in cooking thats made out of grated coconut flesh and regular water theres no Coconut Water in it. And finally the delicious fruit isnt just a thirst quencher coconut shells can be converted into charcoal briquettes they burn longer than regular charcoal and dont produce smoke and eco friendly alternative. If you have a science question go to our website and send it in if we answer it on the show youll get our d. V. D. Featuring a lighthearted look at some of albert einsteins most famous ideas the most important thing is to never stop asking questions. Robots are taking over the world of the work. Theyre already building cars even houses. And theyre considered to be the future of nursing. Which sector will they take over next. This trone is inspecting a field of sugar beets. It works together with an agricultural robot down below in the field the eye on the arm you might say of the brain and the brawn. That a work of the flourish project which is developing autonomous intelligent precision farming systems. The trials are being conducted at a Research Facility of the. University. Frankly bush is one of the project managers. The system so reveals here ideally the system first finds its way from its shed to a certain field for fellow door and. Once its there it completes a predetermined task. Dont mean dealing with winds or applying fertiliser or demand with one. Its teamwork. The drones job is to keep an eye on the sugar beets in the field with its High Resolution camera multispectral imaging cameras sensors and infrared sensors. The drone checks whether a crop is growing well throughout the field or if its patchy and whether weeds are popping up. It can also gather data on the condition of the individual plants. Easing all that data the brains of the system sends the robot out to carry out tasks like precision weeding or fertilizing exactly where its needed and nowhere else. The robot is also equipped with cameras and sensors. Some of them help it to move about autonomous lee. Others allow it to measure the size color and shape of the plants its able to distinguish among them using a range of criteria. And the crop plants colored green in this image the weeds red. One method the robot uses to destroy weeds is very environmentally friendly it just stumps on the. Of a. And surely the duo of drone and robot will work entirely autonomously when it comes to dispensing fertilizer it wont do it the conventional way back. Down to practice until now has looked like this theres a recommended amount of fertilizer per unit area and farmers apply it evenly across a field. But there are differences in soil composition and quality even with a small field they can vary a lot we can analyze the composition quite quickly and cheaply using Airborne Systems such as tiny helicopters and then the dosage can be adjusted meter by meter only applying as much as is really needed. So far the drone and robot have been programmed to work with sugar beets but they could be taught to deal with any crop data on the relevant parameters just have to be collected and integrated into the system. To flourish project said to be completed by the end of twenty eighteen. Frankly bush says the system could prove very useful where you might not expect it to. This is called an organic farming dealing with is one of the most labor intensive activities. One pure luck there will theres another organic farmers can only use mechanical methods or certain specific herbicides are biden can make them silicon robots in a can distinguish between crops and weeds and work on them in distinct on precise ways could make a huge difference come on here i hit our allies throng often. Organic farming is not renowned for pioneering high tech but with flourish all that could change. For more from the world of science and technology go to our website and write us on twitter or facebook we love hearing from you. On our next show we head to New Caledonia in the South Pacific to find some exotic plants that grow on toxic soil scientists are hoping to harness their remarkable powers join us then to find out more by. Coat. And in his case the film such as a camera mounted video was just take a plunge in an icy lake can fill the shoes so much a letter and a miss rang hollow under no cellphone use but to expose some pretty impressive acrobatics and gravity defying stunts so how do they create this turvy world. In thirty minutes on w. Crime fighters the new season the free deal crime thrillers. Domestic violence cyber and schumann trafficked for investigative cases that keep you on your toes the crime fighters series at the base idea so every young person needs to listen to crime fighter and share telephone. Fighters dont miss it. Images from an isolated country. Images from north korea any telling photographer captured fascinating shots of everyday life in a regimented society. An exclusive peek behind one of the last iron curtain its. A north korean diary starting december twenty eighth on t w. They live to surf. Danger lurks in the water we were there all year long surfing into waste and and polluted water not only being the witness but at the time being victims i mean was it you troubles or gastric troubles. Basically this is sort of always moments in fact coupled with the asian fold i was on the show. Is when we do studio its sad to go somewhere every day and see more money and probably shoot times will assume gives me everything with the waves the wind might have to give Something Back to me and i can apply to miss him to many of the others. Point waves surfers fighting against unseen pollution the scene started in january seventh on g. W. This is deja vu news live from Berlin Germany must do better those words from chance wrong of america that a Memorial Service for the victims of last years Christmas Market truck attack michael admits mistakes were made in the aftermath well take a closer look at that response also come with every decision and every act
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