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by fulvous 2449 days ago
Are tires made of plastic?
3 comments

From the article:

>Rubber is also considered plastic, both natural (isoprene) and synthetic (styrene butadiene).

Definitely not what comes to mind when I think of plastics. I usually hear Bakelite quoted as the first invented plastic.
Think "polymer" or "synthetic polymer" since these will be the things bacteria and other parts of nature have not evolved around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer#Common_examples

Synthetic rubber was, in fact, invented after Bakelite.
There are reinforcing fibers that automotive tire manufacturers advertise made of steel and kevlar for higher performance tires. Kevlar is plastic and IIRC was invented in the 60's.

From riding a bicycle as a hobby, most of my puncture flats on the road come from tiny steel strands that come off of tires that have been used a little too much. I imagine the steel fibers just rust away eventually but the kevlar just gets ground into tinier and tinier bits.

Yes,they're a blend of synthetics including plastics.