That's interesting, never would have considered the particulates from brakes but I guess it's like tire dust in that way. I'm not buying the "slightly easier to maintain" though... Sure we've all seen the seized caliper slide pins, but that's less a result of corrosion and more a result of the laziness of the last guy. I'll take disks over drums any time if it means I don't have to piece the drum brake hardware puzzle back together.
wait.. if brakes are 20% of fine particulate matter traffic pollution and tailpipe emissions are 7%, what's the other 73%?
Tires are a big source of fine black particulate matter. It's even worse when your son is trying to create large mathematical symbols in the parking lot.