There is a cool episode of Modern Marvels on the History Channel this week. It's on rubber, and most of it focuses on tires. It's a little dated, but goes through the modern manufacturing and development of tires (along with some other products). It has some really good factory footage - check it out if you can.

 

Sounds very interesting.

I'm wondering how Michelin can build a one-off tire for the MotoGP racers. Seems the company can create a single new tire overnight and have it delivered the next day to the race track. Amazing...

But do today's tires even contain rubber? I thought they are 100% synthetic these days. ????

 

According to the show yes todays tires contain a good amount of natural rubber.

 

malaysia will be out of business if there were no tires and condoms.

well, they got palm oil...

 

They did detail the asian rubber producing countries. They said the largest threat was actual fungal invasions - the problem being that 50% of the farms are too small to afford the treatments. It was really weird to think and be shown that the harvesting of such a 'modern' product hasn't changed a bit in hundreds of years. Cutting a tree, catching the drops

 

Ah... ever wonder where all the rubber goes that wears off your tires?

I once heard that a microbe living in the dirt feeds off the rubber dust. Otherwise there would be huge piles of black dust on the side of the highways. Cool, huh?