The Philippine Pioneer Rubber Products Corporation (PPRPC) in Zamboanga Sibugay got an upgrade and is now able to produce high-quality rubber products thanks to a project initiated by the country’s Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI).
The “Optimisation and Improvement of Processes in the Production of Technically Specified Rubber (TSR) and Demonstration of the Improved Facilities in Zamboanga Peninsula” project ran from October 2013 to June 2016 and sought to breathe life to the country’s natural rubber industry.
“Our natural rubber sector has long been bugged by all kinds of problems – improper harvesting, old machines, poor rubber quality and lack of competitive products,” says Project Leader Engr. Belen B. Bisana.
“With funds from the DOST-Small Enterprises Technology Upgrading Program (DOST-SETUP), the plant was able to replace its old machines with modern ones. Our project, on the other hand, introduced better processing methods which helped upgrade its production system. It can now remove large particle adulterants from rubber cup lumps, reduce the size and clean these lumps, and make evenly dried, uniformly sized and shaped TSR. It now produces high quality rubber that meets world standards, and PPRPC is now a full-scale demonstration plant of some of the best practices in rubber processing,” she reports.
Grown in plantations in tropical countries, the rubber tree produces a sticky, milky sap that is collected once the tree matures. Tappers make a cut in the bark to extract the sap (called latex) and let the tree live on.
Once it thickens into a semi-solid state, the latex is manufactured into a form that passes accepted standards (called technically specified rubber or TSR). TSR is used in a wide range of products, either alone or mixed with other materials.
Not all rubber is natural, however. Of the 15 billion kilogrammes of rubber produced globally each year, two-thirds are man-made. Man-made rubber comes from petroleum by-products and is also widely used in the automobile industry like natural rubber.
Bisana explains, “FPRDI initiated the project because it sees the huge potential of the country’s natural rubber industry. According to experts, the 2015 world deficit in natural rubber which amounted to 125,000 metric tonnes can balloon to 1.067 million metric tonnes by 2030. This big possible market is something we must take advantage of.”
Rubber trees are grown in 217,000 hectares in various parts of the country, but mostly in Mindanao. Of the 450,000 metric tonnes of rubber produced in 2014, about half came from the Zamboanga provinces.
The Rubber Project was funded by the DOST Grants-in-Aid. Aside from the PPRPC upgrading, it has also published training manuals and trained rubber farmers, tappers, and rubber processing plant workers on how to put up a nursery, plant seedlings, do a budding operation, and harvest latex.