First: a fungal disease has wiped out ALL the rubber trees in south america, thats why we cant grow in it the Western hemisphere, a fungus. If we could grow it here we would and it would drop the price by A LOT. But, we already have a solution, a transgenic species that is resistant, nonsense Government regulation and moronic "public opinion" is the only thing stopping this from fixing the rubber problem overnight.
Second: sounds funny, but ever break a dandelion stem in half and see the white stuff come out? That latex, PURE high quality latex. Let that latex air dry and you rubber! No refinement necessary. During WWII they supplied most of the war effort with rubber from dandelions! Yes, it works, its not efficient but progress has been made and with ANY funding at all it could easily produce enough higher quality natural rubber for ALL our need and enough to export.
The ONLY problem is that companies make too much money producing low quality "disposable" tires that they will NEVER switch.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6073688/ [2] https://hcs.osu.edu/our-people/dr-katrina-cornish
We were (or at least I was) told in school that capitalism allowed our civilization to make and sell things we used to only dream about. And when I learned the truth, it was that capitalism was only concerned with how much to sell. If that meant making your products cheaper/worse/less durable on a creeping basis, then that's what the company did.
Capitalism itself is subject to enshittification that affects all products and services.
[I'll leave in the hashtags from when I wrote this up to remind myself at the time:]
#DandelionRubber Tires; #Taraxagum
> Aiding the bees and our environment
> Now, Continental Tires is producing #dandelion rubber tires called #Taraxagum (which is the genus name of the species). The bicycle version of their tires even won the German #Sustainability Award 2021 for sustainable design.,
> “The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire is a unique product that contributes to the development of a new, alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials,” stated Dr. Carla Recker, head of development for the Taraxagum project.
> The report from DW added that the performance of dandelion tires was better in some cases than natural rubber—which is typically blended with synthetic rubber.
> Capable of growing, as we all know, practically anywhere, dandelion needs very little accommodation in a country or business’s agriculture profile. The #Taraxagum research team at Continental hypothesizes they could even be grown in the polluted land on or around old industrial parks.
> Furthermore, the only additive needed during the rubber extraction process is hot #water, unlike Hevea which requires the use of organic solvents that pose a pollution risk if they’re not disposed of properly.
> Representing a critical early-season food supply for dwindling #bees and a valuable source of super-nutritious food for humans, dandelions can also be turned into coffee, give any child a good time blowing apart their seeds—and, now, as a new source for rubber in the world; truly a wondrous plant.
Taraxacum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum
Other Common Names Include: Dandelion, Kazak dandelion, TKS, rubber root. Latin Name: Taraxacum kok-saghyz
Dandelion roots also contain substantial amounts of the starch inulin, which can be fermented to produce fuel ethanol.
USDA Report from 1947 entitled "Russian Dandelion, an Emergency Source of Natural Rubber" https://archive.org/details/russiandandelion618whal/page/n1/...
Synthetic rubber being the largest microplastic source in the world is an incredibly stroke of irony. Reminds me of us discovering that adding tetra ethyl lead to fuel might not be a wonderful idea.