The Rubber Impact Project uses an educational and interventionist approach in addressing transportation rubber issues. The project engages across the full lifecycle of inner tubes and tires, acknowledging the complexity of issues that surround their use, in order to raise awareness about rubber’s environmental and human impacts and to promote actions in support of zero waste. We highlight what is familiar yet overlooked. Our work in addressing society’s impacts includes data analysis and explorations across media, harnessing the experiential and visual. The goal is to engage viewers in a variety of emotions, in order to connect on a personal level and be moved to action. Environmental impacts have taken center stage in our Anthropocene Epoch, our goal is to put rubber under the spotlight to affect positive environmental and social change.
San Francisco discards over 100,000 bicycle tubes every year, enough to wrap the Golden Gate bridge 33 times. In this dead-end material flow, rubber goes straight to landfill, its resource value lost. Inner tube rubber is an extraordinary material with many potential uses once it can no longer function inside a tire. Reusing materials conserves global resources and reduces pollution and green-house gas emissions. So keep this material resource in play and support zero waste through material reuse.