Tires Made Out Of Dandelion?
Dandelions are not especially popular flowers. They have a tendency to pop up even on the tidiest lawn, they are obnoxious and unless you resort to toxic chemicals, they are impossible to get rid of.
However, the tenacious little plants could be used in a very particular way: the milky and sticky liquid inside their stems can be used to synthetize rubber, which can then be made into tires.
Ingrid Van De Meer, a Dutch biologist, has been working on the subject for the last few years. Using a modified variety of Dandelion could present a few advantages compared to traditional latex trees: Production could be spanned over a larger region, instead of being concentrated in South America. Dandelions can also grow in poor soil and attain maturity in a very short time (as any lawn owner could tell you!). And finally, it would be possible to harvest dandelions over and over again, compared to latex trees that have a longevity of 30 years.
Research is currently ongoing, since funding comes from big names in the tire industry, like Bridgestone and Continental. So don’t be surprised if you see huge fields of dandelions in a few years… except that farmers will be happy to see them!