Bridgestone Americas has developed a new car tire that uses natural rubber from a desert plant, making the production process more environmentally friendly. For the past decade, Bridgestone has been working to replace imported natural rubber from the Hevea-Brasiliensis tree in Southeast Asia with the desert plant Guayule. Guayule can be grown in the desert Southwest of the United States as a replacement for traditional crops like alfalfa and cotton, using only half the water needed for these conventional crops. Bridgestone Americas has produced 200 demonstration tires using natural rubber from Guayule desert shrubs, which will be used for electric SUVs and other heavy vehicles. The next step is to evaluate the new tires with various automakers.
The car tire is made up of 75% bio-based and recycled materials, including monomers from recycled plastic bottles, recycled steel and carbon black, bio-based carbon black, and thermoplastic elastomers made from olefin-based carbon black. According to Paolo Ferrari, President & CEO of Bridgestone Americas, the new tire is a significant step towards sustainability. Other tire manufacturers are also working to replace rubber from tropical regions with other materials. Continental recently opened a research facility to investigate the extraction of rubber from the Russian dandelion plant in Anklam.
The use of Guayule desert shrubs for natural rubber production is a promising development in the tire industry’s efforts to become more sustainable. By using recycled and renewable materials, Bridgestone Americas is making significant progress towards its goal of using fully sustainable materials in its products by 2050. The evaluation of the new tires with various automakers will be a crucial step in determining their effectiveness and potential for widespread use.
