Sunday Times 2
Tire makers race to turn dandelions into rubber
View(s):MUENSTER Germany (Reuters) – Dutch biologist Ingrid van der Meer often meets with disbelief when she talks about her work on dandelions and how it could secure the future of road transport.
A piece of rubber made from dandelion plants is seen at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) (Reuters)
“People just think of it as a horrible weed and ask how can you get enough material for tires from just a small root,” she said.
Her research team is competing with others across the world to breed a type of dandelion native to Kazakhstan whose taproot yields a milky fluid with tire-grade rubber particles in it.
Global tire makers such as industry leader Bridgestone Corp and No.4 player Continental AG believe they are in for rich pickings and are backing such research to the tune of millions of dollars.
Early signs are good. A small-scale trial by a U.S. research team found the dandelions delivered per-hectare rubber yields on a par with the best rubber-tree plantations in tropical Asia.
The tire industry, which consumes about two-thirds of the world’s natural rubber, has long felt uneasy about its complete reliance on rubber-tree tapping in a handful of Southeast Asian nations which account for most of the $25 billion in annual natural-rubber output.