America Grapples With Its Tyre Problem
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The United States is "Thinking Big" About Synthetic-rubber Production, But Before Useful Supplies are Available a Shortage Gap Has to be Bridged and Transport Control is One Method By Which the Desired End is Being Achieves
A LTHOUGH hundreds of thousands Plkof tons of synthetic rubber will be produced in the United States up to the end of this year. the Nation is still faced with the need for bridging the shortage gap between •then and now. Addressing a group of fleet operators of delivery, vehicles—actually, bottlers of carbonated beverages—a spokesman for the Office of Defense Transportation recently gave some vital information relating to the rubber situation. He said that the stock pile is 631,000 tons against which military and other war requirements call for 842,000 tons, so that the " deficit " is 211,000 tons. " We have overdrawn the bank " on rubber, he said, and suggested the possibility Of a still greater curtail.. ment of all but the most essential uses of rubber. The picture as he painted it, however', was perhaps, a little more pessimistic than need be. Many synthetic rubbers are being substituted for both war and civilian needs and the growing production of the synthetic Buna S, made by the polymerization of butadiene and styrene, should close this gap, with only a slight "pinch "• on most industries.
• But bottlers of carbonated beverages and those in similar purely civilian delivery spheres will undoubtedly feel the heavy hand of transportation control still more before relief comes which, it is hoped, may' be by the end of this year or early next year.
Collections and Deliveries Controllers
To meet the rubber shortage the Office of Defense Transportation has already established rulings demanding full loads on collection and. delivery vehicles and prohibiting more than a single delivery or pick-up at a given place in one day. In all probability this scheme has served to relieve the . situation, but the O.D.T. is calling for still greater efficiency in such commercial transport operations. The latest suggestion by this government office is for joint action and the pooling of operations, so far as is practicable and on a•" voluntary" basis.
The bogy that has been haunting many businesses, such as laundries, bottlers, brewers and others with individual "customers, has been the possibility that the O.P.T. would eventually require the pooling of all deliveries in specific fields, so that
_ there would be, a separate collection and delivery organization acting for all competitors. In certain American retail spheres, such as departmental stores, consolidated deliveries arc of • long standing. • , 'in more than a half-dozen large • cities, from Los Angeles to New York, the United Parcel Service acts as -a delivery organization for most of the competing retail stores and has done so for many years. But the driver of a laundty vehicle or carbonatedbeverage truck is also a salesman for the product and the company. Consolidated deliveries in such fields might, therefore, have almost revolutionary effects on the cOnduct of the businesses. •
The 0.D.T.'s present demand for pooling is quite . mild, It asks companies .sending out a fully laden vehicle which returns light or with only ..a partial load—such as empty bottles in the beverage business—to come to an arrangement with other classes of operator and to pick. up loads for them. But evidence of the old bogy of consolidation appears in the further suggestion of " voluntary " action toturn over customers to competitors, where the vehicles of the latter are involved in running shorter mileages to serve them. Despite the " voluntary " emphasis, it is added that, if something like this be not done, there is ample precedent for orders to make -the action mandatory.
Searching for New Sources of Supply
Returning to the rubber problem, activity in the United States is proceeding in two directions--(1) creation of a synthetic-rubber industry, largely for Buna S production:' (2) research into both domestic and imported plants to find a natural source, or sources, of latex. So far research and exploration to discover such new !sources to replace the milk of the hevea tree of Malay, Java, -Indo-China and other Oriental places, have not produced anything of a revolutionary
nature. Important activity of this kind has been under way at Cornell University since March, 1942, under a 22,000 grant from the B. F. Goodrich Co. Goldenrod, milkweed, the Russian dandelion, Indian hemp and, _most recently, cryptostegia-s-a tropical fine —have been studied and, of course, guayule. The last-mentioned weed grows prolifically throughout the Mid and Western States, as well as in Mexico.
The Mexican plant, for some years, has been furnishing small. quantities of " guayule , rubber.".. Its principal value lies in the fact that a fair amount of the latex is obtained per aerc and that the latex can be extracted mechanically.
In the cases of other weeds ineehani-• cal means for eittraction have not been developed to handle them and, in any case, many are too low in content. The Russian dandelion, transplanted experimentally, last year, to America has been grown with apparently equal or better success than in the Soviet Union.
All thesedevelopments raise the question of what kind ofrubber will, in the futtire, be used on American
motor vehicles. So far, the answer
woukl appear to be, " still the natural product " from the Orient. But-eit is a rather large "• but "—current developments in both improved synthetic rubber and research into rubber-bearing plants might conceivably change that-situation completely' to, the pOint that there --would, in the future,. be no need to import more than a small quantity of, Malayan, Javanese and Indo-Chinese rubber, markets that formerly.. furnished almost 98 per cent. of the needs of the
United States.. . • .
The American synthetic-rubber production sefiedule of 948,600 tons by 1944, calls for the following:—Buna 5," 705,000; butyl, 132,006; neoprene, 60,000: thiokol, 51,000. Under consideration for building arc additional Buna S plants, which are planned to produce another 135,000 ions, ora grand total of 1,083,060 tons, This would appear to make the United States self-supporting in' the matter of rubber, when the capacity is complete.
Natural Product Gives Best Mileage The difficulty is that, so far, even . Butte S does not provide anywhere near the mileage of tyres made from the natural product, although improvements hr this respect will undoubtedly
be made. Meanwhile, the first synthetic tyres that are bee-pining available are -scheduled for essential war industries. Others, even some of those definitely useful to the prose:cu, tion of the . war, must get along on ' recapped tyres—provided they can get them, M tyres become available and are allotted, each • community has its rationing board. The laundry opera• -tor, although not in a war industry,, is likely, nevertheless,, to get some consideration. The bottler ofcaC. bona t e d or other beverages is rather far•down the line, even for a recapped tyre. So are the operators of retail delivery .vans.
-To, what extent different industries, which are not able to establish war
• " essentiality," inay. be forced into co-operative or pooling arrangements 'remains to. be seen. They are likely, it seems, to come closer to pooling than they have, so far, before synthetic prciduction begini' really to relieve the situation. Even if an eXcellent source . 'of latex be found in some weed almost immediately; such a natural *rubber is unlikely to make its, effect felt tintii after the war, unless victory be loner delayed than anybody noW expects.