BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Continental’s Urban Taraxagum bicycle tyre, made from dandelion rubber, has won the German Sustainability Award 2021 in the category ‘Responsible Design’.
“We are very pleased to receive this award,” said Dr Carla Recker, who heads the development project for obtaining natural rubber from dandelions at Continental. “The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tyre is a unique product that contributes to the development of a new, alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials.”
Sustainable and responsible management has been an ‘integral’ part of Continental’s corporate strategy and development for many years, the company said. This also includes efforts to ensure that natural rubber will no longer be imported exclusively from the tropics in future, but will be extracted as close as possible to the tyre plants.
The Urban Taraxagum bicycle tyre, which has been available on the market since 2019, is the ‘first’ serial product made of dandelion rubber that combines local production with minimal transport distances in the supply chain.
The tyre has now been produced for two years at Continental’s tyre plant in Korbach, Germany. In the Taraxagum research laboratory in Anklam, Germany, employees from agricultural sciences, chemistry, production and process engineering are tasked with the cultivation of the plants as well as the development, construction and operation of machines for experimentation with the processing of the Russian dandelion.
Read the December issue of BikeBiz below:
