4 ms·

Aren't they both plastic?

• klodolph 2y ago
  There are plastics in the tire, but the exterior bulk of the tire is rubber, which is not plastic.
  • arcticbull 2y ago
    Yep, rubbers are generally the class of elastomers. Natural rubber is poly-cis-isoprene, synthetic rubbers are a mix of petroleum-derived polymers.
  • verseguru 2y ago
    Bulk no. Tyres are apparently only 19% natural rubber. Slightly more is synthetic, and the rest… well none of it is good ground up on roads then breathed in. I lived for a while next to a moderately busy road. Feck it was filthy even with windows never open. Even my mountain bike tyres now contain graphene which doesn't sound like a good idea for the sake of an unnoticeable improvement, and prob only as a racer. Seems a case of new jargon selling more. So they keep adding new compounds.