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During the COVID-19 pandemic large numbers of single-use, surgical style face masks were lost or discarded in public spaces, primarily in on public streets and car parking settings. Many of these masks were blown onto the road surfaces where they were subjected to degradation through the tire impact of passing vehicle traffic. As series of field observations as well as experimental simulations show that the three-ply polypropylene mask fabric is subjected to shear forces when compressed between the tire and the road surface. The mechanical action breaks the bonds between the fibers (both spunbonded and meltblown) leading to a continual shedding of microfibers. Wind disperses these into the environment along road sides, while surface water action moves them into stormwater drains and from there into the waterways. As the decay is rapid, municipal agencies only have a short window of time to remove stray face masks from the urban environment if micro-fiber pollution is to be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental problems, such as pollution, become more serious year after year. One of the major causes is high fossil fuel consumption with CO2 emission. In 2009, 23 percent of CO2 emission globally came from land transportation systems, which is equal to 7000 million tons of CO2. This large amount of gas pollution should be reduced to slow down global environmental problems. Reduction of fuel consumption and CO2 emission in land transportation systems, which will have immediate positive economical and environmental impact, has become an important part of green technologies to alleviate global warming due to human activity. Intelligent transportation systems, which aim to use information and communication technology in the transportation systems, are considered to be a major enabler for the future green ITS. This article aims to provide a survey of the latest published applications based on vehicular communications as well as the envisaged technical challenges in this research area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]