Brake Pad Partnership
Project Details
The Brake Pad Partnership's mission is to foster a collaborative effort in understanding the physical and chemical properties of copper in brake pad wear debris, and determine its behavior and potential impact in the environment.
In October 2003, the Partnership initiated a series of interlinked technical studies designed to model the fate and transport of copper released from brake pads. These studies were designed to understand the potential for copper from brake pads to enter the South San Francisco Bay and impact the short- and long-term concentrations of copper in the water. With facilitation from Sustainable Conservation, manufacturers, stormwater managers, water quality regulators, and environmentalists have overseen analyses necessary to understand how brake pad debris travels in the environment and if there are potential impacts. Brake pad wear debris characterization, air deposition modeling, and watershed modeling studies have been completed and the Partnership has determined that brake pads contribute substantially to copper in runoff to the San Francisco Bay.
Partnership History
In 1994, a highly disputed study estimated that more than half the copper in urban runoff to the San Francisco Bay comes from brake pads. Industry, environmental, stormwater management, and regulatory stakeholders held different perspectives on the potential significance of the study findings. Today, there is agreement among the stakeholders about the substantiality of copper from brake pads on surface waters in the San Francisco Bay watershed, and the Partnership is working to develop appropriate control strategies for copper from brake pads. In the meantime, the Partnership's technical studies continue.
By working together, all involved believe they have much to gain by focusing their energies on the development of high quality, credible scientific information, which will be used directly to protect and improve water quality.
With this in mind, if the industry must replace copper with another material, it is critical that the replacement material be environmentally safe. Brake pad manufacturers will incorporate the Partnership's evaluation approach into their product development processes to avoid using potentially harmful ingredients in the future.
