31 May 2012, Japan’s Bridgestone Tires, and a food company call Ajinomoto, have worked together to create rubber without the use of oil or rubber trees.

The process uses fermented starches, and other sugars, from food waste, or biomass.  The process is able to extract a necessary ingredient in making rubber; isoprene.

If everything works out Bridgestone hopes to mass produce the fermented tires by 2020.