I’m a chemistry student in my final year of my masters at Swansea uni. We have to write a report for a pretend science magazine on a topic of our choice.
I have been surfing for about 5 years now and couldn’t think of a better way to spend all my spare time, however with all the recent press in the last 6 months about Clarke foam and its reasons for closing, be they the real ones or not, I have decided to write my report on the environmental impacts of surfing.
I want to talk about the whole picture, from the blowing of blanks, formulating resins, making surf wax, travel, disposal problems of waste and old boards etc. I do realise that there are obviously trade secrets and patents, but I am finding it very hard finding information about the chemistry of the manufacturing process, and also “greener” alternatives, for example I heard about a lam resin made from carrots but I cant find any info on it.
Does anyone know of any sources of info that would be of help?
Cheers guys
Matt
p.s. This really is a fantastic site. I have tried shaping a few boards myself and I couldn’t have done it without the wisdom of you guys!
do search for clark fax, and also on google.com . . . epa and clark foam . . . there were lots of articles put down here during the close of clark foam on black monday (12-05-2005) search for month after here …
also look up the white sheets on surfboard resin, acetone. Then on denatured alcholol and epoxy .
resin research , sex wax , also find the websites . . .
search wood / balsa here and you’ll find links to tom wegner’s site . . .
do a search for pu / pe here and eps epoxy . . . find alot . . .
search TDI / MDI / water blown . . . also look into specifics such as expanded styrene foam or polystyrene or volan fiberglass etc . . . MEKP etc. Look for specific chemical names . . .
see if you can visit local shaping and glassing shops . . . ask them about disposals . . .
Don’t forget to look at the bigger picture in your paper too. What I mean by that is, yes, there are some very negative environmental impacts of the production and use of most materials that are used in surfbaord production. That’s a given. Think about all the other substances produced by humans that fall into the same category. However, do not forget about all the people who surf, who become true surfers, more intimately involved with their environment and therefore more likely to actively support its protection. Would the world be better off environmentally if there were no surfboards and the surfers that rode them? I think not.
I have tried to include a balance picture.I surf myself, but am by no means in total balance with the environment however much I try to be.I do realise that there is a lot of work being done out there!
cheers for the search ideas hiroprotagonist. I have searching before, but there is so much information its really hard to find the bits I want.Ill keep looking!
I think you’ll find that whatever information you can glean from the MSDS sheets form the larger manufacturers will be pretty much it - some of the large scale chemical engineering tricks in use may be trade secrets, but the chemistry is pretty straightforward and doesn’t vary grossly from manufacturer to manufacturer. For instance, a polyester resin is a polyester resin, a gas blown urethane foam is a gas blown urethane foam. Toss in a disclaimer ( these processes are in part trade secrets, but for polyurethane foam… ) and that may be the best you can do in a reasonable timewhile dealing with all your other work.
A bit like the use of recycled deep-fry oil in a diesel car: the costs of shipping it around tot the reprocessor, the reagents and process costs in energy and such, the small scale ( less efficient) transport system for moving the finished product around to end-users, all that…when that is figured in, it gets more complex than ‘oh, your car smells like chips’…
It really is quite an interesting point when you look at the whole picture.Using natural products is all good but I happen to know that there are some pretty nasty things made from natural products.Also,its all good advertising your hemp surfboard as bio-degradable but after soaking it in epoxy resin me finks its not too degradable!
Don’t forget the multi million dollar clothing surf industry. Tons of pesticides to grow the cotton for clothes, dyes and inks, glue and materials for shoes and sandals, the fuel for the container ship to cross the ocean from China. Wetsuits, etc.
jump in with out crushing any of the organics on the bottom
then body surf without fins naked
don’t poop or pee while you’re doing it…
About as green as you can get
if you think you can get away with it…
knew some timothy leary disciples in the early 70’s that came pretty close except it was an all natural loin cloth lavalava they wore…
only problem is…
the eel that brought in with them hanging off the front scared all the fish away when he used to help us paipai (splash water) net fish off the shoreline. Could’ve been the smell too cause it didn’t look like he showered very much as he was covered in dirt most of the time. All the uncles used to tell him not to help when he tried to jump in and join the fun. A very aboriginal looking haole high on sugar cubes…
on the other hand
there’s someone like Tom “Pohaku” Stone who’s making some nice solid woodies using banana juice and kukui/coconut oil to seal them and has ridden his in good sized indo, hawaii and elsewhere. Velzy was doing the same and so is Wegener although I don’t know how they shape and seal their big solid woodies. Other than EPS Chris Garrett is supposed to be doing something similar as is Daniel Hess to produce more modern semi green boards. Of course vacuum bagging takes energy too.
I guess they could sandbox them with hot sand or use hemp rope clamps to get around the vacuum pump issue.
Petro chemicals are always going to chew up the atmosphere and have long half life deterioration schedules over pure organics. I think you really have to think out of the box to build a modern structure and maintain similar strengths. Someone once mentioned that you could grow a hollow board out of a molded gourd and then seal it some how. The aboriginal crew down in the solomons are doing something similar but their boards don’t last too long… I forgot where I read the article on their natural board technology…
The most creative at this are those with no resources but a great desire.
environmentaly surfboard foam their is only one go to lapextreme.com no voc what so ever …and it is a better foam surfboards will last alot longer
as far as the surf industry it is the mighty dollar comes before the environment they will only change if they are force to
And of course you are huckstering your product here out of purely altruistic motives/benefit to the environment - personal financial gain never crossed your mind, right? I’d advise you to get back to hiding under your bridge before you find out that the chef’s special today is Troll Hash :->
if i wanted to just make money i would make polyurethane foam like everyone else much higher profit and much easier to sell and why not kill off a few people as long as i can make millons like clark
i am just trying to make a living with out killing off the environment or my employees
which is more than i can say for most of the foam industry
so take your head out before you open your mouth and you wont talk so much shit…
if i wanted to just make money i would make polyurethane foam like everyone else much higher profit and much easier to sell and why not kill off a few people as long as i can make millons like clark
i am just trying to make a living with out killing off the environment or my employees
which is more than i can say for most of the foam industry
so take your head out before you open your mouth and you wont talk so much shit…
No product or manufacturing process, nor any living creature for that matter, has zero negative impact on the rest of the environment. Nothing, therefore, particularly no manufactured product, is “100% environmentally friendly”, which is the claim you made here:
Such a claim is made from either ignorance or intentional duplicity (please note that those are not mutually exclusive attributions). I think it is pretty clear who is the prime virtual defecator in this instance, in spite of your anatomically improbable suggestions. If you want to make headway here, I suggest you abandon the exaggerated and reckless rhetoric and stick to the facts. Make a claim that your foam is “more environmentally friendly” and back it up by listing the complete ingredients, components, and processes involved (this can be done without revealing trade secrets, to anticipate one possible response) in making your blanks, and you will find a much more receptive audience.
the foam is made with water presser and steam the base is a recyclable plastic you cant get much more environmentaly friendy than that and it even has a fda aproval so you can eat off it