Talk:Natural rubber

Synthetic rubbers have fundamentally different properties to natural rubbers and are therefore used for different purposes. For example, nitrile rubber has decreased permeability to many solvents and increased abrasion resistance.

I'd suggest the article needs an update as natural rubber and synthetic rubbers need to be more clearly delineated. Also a short monologue on chemical additives and potential allergies would be of use as they are of fundamental importance to a significant minority (natural rubber can cause a potentially fatal allergy).

I will try to address this in the coming weeks.

--John Spashett 09:29, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Where can i found Kautschuk?

What about the use of Natural rubber to augment synthetic rubber properties?

^[1] states

Around 30,000 everyday products contain natural rubber, everything from car tires, catheter tubes, latex gloves to tops for drinks bottles. Car tires, for instance, would not be elastic enough without the incorporation of natural rubber.

This seems to be to be missing from the article: there is not just synthetic, and natural rubber, but there is also widespread use of natural rubber to alter the properties of synthetic rubber: complexes of both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.240.104.100 (talk) 06:48, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

To distinguish the tree-obtained version of natural rubber from the synthetic version, the term gum rubber is sometimes used.

Which one is gum rubber? Natural or synthetic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.2.66 (talk) 16:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

There are missing numbers or words in the last sentence of the 4th paragraph of the History section: "Liberia and Nigeria started production"

Agreed. Feel free to delete this part or fix it. BernardoSulzbach (talk) 00:36, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Done --AlainV (talk) 23:20, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Prior to the late 1950s we had elastic in apparel waistbands. Was this pure latex? Or latex treated in some way, or combined with other fibers?

What is used in waistbands today? Latex? Spandex? FreeFlow99 (talk) 12:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

How is the history section intended to be organized? In particular, the "pre-World War II" section makes little sense when everything before it is also prior to WWII. Should that be "historic use of rubber"? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:43, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

@The ed17 The article mentions some environmental aspects, but I believe it would be helpful to expand on the environmental impact of large-scale rubber plantations, particularly regarding deforestation and biodiversity loss in Southeast Asia. Would others support adding a subsection with citations from recent studies? Krishnpriya123 (talk) 11:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I had assumed that natural rubber would be very sustainable because the trees live a long time and keep producing, and they are... well, trees! But it seems there are issues of deforestation and mono-cropping as with palm oil. https://www.mightyearth.org/2021/01/26/the-unfashionable-truth-about-unsustainable-latex-rubber/ I had always thought it was like cork, which is very sustainable, but apparently it's not the same. Anyone who is an expert, I would really value a section on this.Annafjmorris (talk) 22:13, 11 November 2021 (UTC)