Bridgestone May Have Found A Promising New Source of Rubber

Bridgestone is researching a new, sustainable rubber alternative. Could we get this growing in the U.S.?
Written by Katie Dyer
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
We all know that you aren’t really on a
road trip
until the rubber hits the road, and Bridgestone Tire Company knows that better than most. As global demand for
car parts
increases and the need for biodiverse and sustainable products also grows, Bridgestone is working to develop new sources of affordable rubber for their tires. 
MotorTrend
reports that Bridgestone has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue their research into guayule, an evergreen desert plant that could be a new source of rubber for tires and other products. 

What is Guayule?

According to
Chemical and Engineering News
, for over a century, tire producers have been looking for alternatives to the traditional rubber plants grown in southeast Asia to keep their supply chain diversified and to protect their businesses from global events, disasters, and crop failures. 
Guayule (pronounced gwah-yoo-lee) is a shrub that grows in the deserts of the southwest U.S. and northern Mexico. It is drought-resistant, and possibly a future sustainable and biodiverse source of natural rubber. 
Since WWII when Japan cut off the supplies of rubber to the U.S., guayule has been a potential source of new rubber, and it was grown and studied through the Emergency Rubber Project in California and Texas during the war. But, as soon as the war ended, so did the project. 
For one thing, harvesting and processing it has turned out to be an expensive and time-consuming process, compared to the relatively cheap natural rubber from the tropics and synthetic rubber. 
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Why it isn’t cheap

Liquid latex flows freely from rubber trees and is affordable to harvest and process. But, the rubber in guayule is contained in the cells of the plant, and can only be harvested after the plant is 2-3 years old. The top portion of the plant is cut, leaving the base of the plant in the ground to regrow. 
The cost-prohibitive nature of guayule has held it back all these years, but Bridgestone is hoping to change that. 
"Guayule shows tremendous potential for advancing the biodiversity of natural rubber sourcing and introducing alternatives to existing crops in water-starved areas such as America's desert southwest," according to Bridgestone's Director of Sustainable Materials and Circular Economy,  William Niaura in one of
Bridgestone’s
press releases on the topic.
Bridgestone is planning to use this grant to further its study of the genome of guayule and to increase the yield, and bring down costs through this new research. This grant will bolster efforts to find more cost-effective and sustainable ways for bringing guayule into use within the next ten years. 
MORE: Consumer Reports Rates Best Car Tires of 2021

Bridgestone’s future plans

Bridgestone has been focusing its research on
California
, Arizona, and New Mexico. They have invested over $100 million in this endeavor in the last decade including a new research facility in Mesa, Arizona. One of their big tasks is to try to find productive uses for the 95% of the guayule plant that isn’t used for producing rubber. 
In addition, the company has also been working independently with the Environmental Defense Fund to find solutions for desert areas irrigated by the Colorado River in Arizona and is aiming for guayule to be a viable and sustainable crop for farmers who are struggling with irrigation shortages and droughts. 
Bridgestone unveiled a guayule rubber tire in 2015, so the technology and know-how are already in place, but it is still too expensive to be a widespread option. However, Bridgestone aims to make all tires from renewable materials by 2050 and to reduce its emissions by 50% by 2030, which means the time may be right for guayule to come into its own. 
The
Bridgestone Group
describes this as an important “expansion and diversification of renewable resources.”

How to save money

While Bridgestone works on making sustainable guayule tires affordable, you might as well work on making your life more affordable too.
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