What does research tell us about tire-derived chemicals in lettuce and other leafy vegetables?
The presence of tire-derived chemicals in lettuce and leafy vegetable is not adequatey researched to date.
There are a few recent studies on the subject but each one of them has acknowledged limitations that impact the results of the study.
For instance, a 2024 study by Sherman et al. into the presumed uptake of tire-derived chemicals in leafy vegetables accepted various challenges such as identification of very low concentrations of compounds with non-target mass spectrometry. The author also observed that benzothiazoles are ubiquitous in the natural environment (such as in leaves), besides being used in artificial chemicals like biocides and food flavorings. Furthermore, the study did not explore the vegetables’ exposure to external agents during transportation, washing, storage, and sales.
In 2023, Castan et al. researched the same topic and purposefully spiked a non-soil growing-medium with chemicals at such unrealistic amounts that the authors admitted were much greater than those measured in the environment.
Additionally, in 2023, a consumer-testing report by Ktipp that detected tire-related chemicals in salad was not published in scientific peer-reviewed literature, which makes its claims – including the sources of any found chemicals – impossible to validate.
TIP acknowledges and supports the interest in this new field of investigation.
