Bridgestone aims to make tyres from recycled material, growing special rubber

When the entire automotive industry is thriving towards a sustainable future, tyre manufacturers being a major part of the industry's ecosystem, don't want to stay away. Bridgestone being one of the leading global tyre manufacturers, has recently announced that it is testing passenger car tyres largely made from a wide range of recycled and renewable materials. The tyre maker is claimed to be growing plants to produce natural rubber for this.

The tyre manufacturing company has also said it will work with leading auto manufacturers throughout the year to test and further develop environment-friendly tyres. The company claims that it has 200 sets of these tyres ready to go, which have been built with 37 per cent recycled materials and 38 per cent renewable materials. With the current recycled and renewable material share being 75 per cent in the new-age tyres from the company, it aims to take that content to 90 per cent in the coming years.

Bridgestone has said that it uses recycled materials like rubber, steel, varying degrees of carbon black and plastic bottles, and natural rubber harvested from the guayule desert shrub to create synthetic rubber to manufacture the tyres. The tyre manufacturer also said it is growing material at an agricultural facility in Arizona. The company further stated that plant-based oils and bio-based silica from rice husk ash are among the other renewables involved in manufacturing.

These sustainable material-built tyres were designed and engineered at the company's technology centre in Ohio in the US and manufactured at its plant in South Carolina. It further stated that once the 75 per cent threshold is reached, 90 per cent will be its next benchmark on the way to a goal of making 100 per cent renewable or sustainable tyres by 2050.