A small shrub used to make IndyCar racing tires could help save rainforests and make deserts greener [Video]

If you’ve watched IndyCar racing over the past couple of years, you may have seen some of the cars using green tires with a difficult-to-pronounce name.

The name is guayule, pronounced why-OO-lee. It’s a small desert shrub native to the southwestern US and Mexico that Bridgestone uses to make the rubber in the sidewalls of its green Firestone-branded racing tires.

Nick Eulau, the executive director for guayule and end-of-life tire recycling at Bridgestone, said the company’s ambitions for guayule go beyond the race track.

Bridgestone is trying to develop a sustainable domestic source of natural rubber that could help stem reliance on supplies from tropical forests while bolstering biodiversity and agriculture in arid climates.

Guayule has been a source of natural rubber for a century. Firestone, which was acquired by the Japanese tire giant in 1988, has been working with the shrub since World War II.