Rubber is an important raw supplies wished for automotive tires, non-public defending gear much like masks and gloves, and plenty of additional regularly merchandise. Anytime you’re going wherever, you’re using rubber. Now, present chain disruptions have thrown the rubber enterprise proper right into a tailspin.

“We might very properly be on the cusp of a rubber apocalypse,” Ohio State School professor Katrina Cornish instructed CNBC.

Rubber producers are going by way of native climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, a dangerous fungus and the fight for shipping containers.

The worldwide financial system stays relying on Asia for 90% of the natural rubber supply. As an example, the U.S. imported $140 million value of pure rubber in March 2021 alone, in response to Census data.

The worldwide pure rubber market was valued at virtually $40 billion in 2020, and demand for rubber is anticipated to increase. One analysis predicts the natural rubber market might very properly be value virtually $68.5 billion by 2026. One goal for the elevated demand? Car tires.

“We’re using tires more and more extra,” Stefano Savi, director of the Worldwide Platform for Sustainable Pure Rubber, instructed CNBC. “The amount of mileage that we’ll do as a world inhabitants is certainly positive to increase, and that’s the reason the demand for rubber is de facto persevering with to increase.”

Watch the video above to review additional about why the pure rubber present chain faces challenges, what pure rubber means for economies everywhere in the world, and what rubber enhancements would possibly look like in the end.