Recipe for Green Tires: Plants, Not Petroleum

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/automobiles/20TIRE.html?pagewanted=2&ref=science

Quarter 4

Article 1

June 17, 2010

National

Summary:

Efforts to improve the eco-friendliness of tires are growing. Automakers are trying to reduce the use of raw materials — particularly the five to 10 gallons of petroleum ingredients needed to manufacture a tire. Scientists found that 86 percent of the tire’s environmental impact revolves around how it affects fuel consumption. Only 12 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with tires arise from the raw materials and manufacturing. Different car and tire companies have come up with different models of tires to make them more environmentally sustainable. For example, Sumitomo cut back the amount of carbon black filler in the tread compound while increasing the amount of fuel-saving silica filler. Vegetable processing oil was substituted for its petroleum equivalent, and the compounds were reinforced with fibers made from plant cellulose. Also, Engineers at Yokohama Tire, working toward a similar goal, have come up with tires that are 80 percent petroleum-free. It uses chemically modified natural rubber and a processing oil that is derived from orange peels. The peels are shipped from orange juice factories near the tire plant in Japan. Efforts are also growing to recycle a greater fraction of the estimated 300 million tires that domestic drivers discard each year.

Opinion: I think that it is very important that companies do all that they can to find new solutions that are environmentally friendly. If they are able to do this, they will not have to find ways to recycle 300 million tires every year.

Vocabulary:

isoprene- a colorless, volatile, water-insoluble liquid, C ₅ H ₈ , of theterpene class, usually obtained from rubber or from oil ofturpentine by pyrolysis: used chiefly in the manufacture ofsynthetic rubber by polymerization.