Geography ELP Project

Geography ELP Project

Topic- Crop:Rubber

History of Rubber

The first use of rubber was by the indigenous
cultures of Mesoamerica. The earliest archeological
evidence of the use of natural latex from the Hevea
tree comes from the Olmec culture, in which rubber
was first used for making balls for the
Mesoamerican ballgame. Later, vulcanized rubber
was discovered by Charles Goodyear in 1844.

Rubber and its Rubber is made from the latex of the tree,
various uses Hevea Brasiliensis (Rubber tree).

The crop, rubber, has various uses:

● It acts as a good insulator and a very
poor conductor of electricity.

● Strong rubber is used to make tyres
and pipes.

● Other uses of rubber is that it is used
to make hoses, belts, matting,
gloves, and much more items of daily
use.

Did you know? ● Rubber used to erase marks came about by
accident. During the late 18th century,
Englishman Edward Nairne accidentally
picked up a cube of sap to erase a pencil
mark instead of a breadcrumb and noticed
that the rubber sap worked better.

● Most rubber products today are made from
man-made rubber using chemicals.
Producing garters and suspenders, the first
rubber factory was established in 1803 in
Paris.

● The tyre manufacturing industry is one of the
biggest consumers of rubber today. Rubber
latex is actually white, but a black carbon
filler is added to tyres to give them their dark
colour. This makes the tyres stronger.

How is rubber
extracted from the
rubber plant?

Geographical conditions necessary for
the growth of rubber plant are:

● Flat or gently sloping land
● Temperature of about 25°C to 35°C.
● Well-distributed rainfall of about 200 cm to 300 cm throughout the year should

be there.
● The soil should be rich and well-drained laterite soil
● Abundant human labour should be there.

The rubber producing countries in the world are: India,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nigeria.
Liberia and Brazil. The largest rubber producing tree in
the world is Thailand.

Presentation by Mridul Tripathi
Group 4, Class 6F