The environment has been significantly impacted by the rubber industry through the release of large quantities of wastewater during various industrial processes. Therefore, it is crucial to treat the wastewater from the rubber industry before discharging it into natural water bodies. With the understanding that alarmingly depleting freshwater sources need to be preserved for future generations, this paper reviews the status of the rubber industry and the pollution caused by them, focusing mainly on water pollution. The review pays special attention to the recent advancements in wastewater treatment techniques for rubber industry wastewater categorizing them into pre-treatment, secondary, and tertiary treatment processes while discussing the advantages and disadvantages. Through a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, it was determined that organic content and NH4+ are the most frequently focused water quality parameters, and despite some treatment methods demonstrating superior performance, many of the methods still face limitations and require further research to improve systems to handle high organic loading on the treatment systems and to implement them in industrial scale. The paper also explores the potential of utilizing untreated or treated wastewater and byproducts of wastewater treatment in contributing towards achieving several United Nations sustainable development goals (UN-SDGs); SDG 6, SDG 7, SDG 9, and SDG 12. Display omitted •Forecasted global industrial rubber market expansion is at CAGR of 5.2% by 2026.•Rubber industry uses high volumes of water in production (e.g. 20–50 L/1 kg of Crepe rubber, 50–60 L/1 kg of block rubber).•On average 20 tonnage manufacturing process generates 410 m3 of toxic effluent per day in a rubber factory.•Conventional techniques are inadequate to treat wastewater up to discharge standards.•Conventional to advanced treatment techniques used are reviewed in this paper.