Tire particles and potentially toxic tire chemical additives have been found in dust collected from Brisbane residential balconies. University of Queensland researchers examined the balcony dust from homes across inner-city, suburban and near-road settings to see how traffic-related pollution traveled from streets to residential environments.
Doctoral candidate Simran Kaur, who conducted the research with UQ's Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences, said the study provided the first quantitative evidence of tire pollutants on Australian balconies, including a chemical called 6PPD-quinone. The work is published in the journal ACS ES&T Air.
"6PPD-quinone is a chemical used in tire production that has caused mass salmon mortality events in the United States," Kaur said. "These findings indicate outdoor residential dust may be an important 'sink' for 6PPD-quinone, with implications for human exposure."
Balcony dust samples were collected between June 2024 and March 2025. Researchers detected tire additive chemicals in 29 of 30 samples, with 6PPD-quinone detected on 23 balconies. Other chemicals used in tire production, including Hexa(methoxymethyl)melamine (HMMM), 2-(4-Morpholinyl)benzothiazole (24MoBT) and 5-methylbenzotriazole (5-MBTR), were also detected.
