Hey Swaylocks!,
Where a new organization made up of students from High Tech High Media Arts in San Diego, CA. We are working on a project to collect and publicize information about the ecological impact of surfboards. Please check out our website--we would appreciate your feedback.
Thank you very much!
I would suggest some serious fact checking is necessary.
You list fiberglass as a “bad” material and MDI as a “good” material.
Whee.
This is a tough subject to deal with and be accurate.
Most of the products that are used to make traditional boards are petrolium based. Almost all blanks and resins are.
There are a few people making boards from Bamboo, but the foam core is still a plastic.
Even the old wood boards can not be considered sustainable unless you happen to have a plantation somewhere growing the trees for new boards. It takes many years for tress to grow large enough to make a surfboard.
There are balsa plantations in Ecuador that supply builders with blank material.
Tom Wegener is building wooden boarda in Australia from Paulonia wood and planting new trees for future boards. He’s even trying unglassed boards to be Green.
These would be considered sustainable sources.
There are guys using old redwood logs abandoned years ago and making boards.
The beautiful Wiliwili wood once prized by Hawaiian Royalty for surfboards and canoes may disappear from Hawaii before I do. Koa is nearly impossible to get in a size large enough for a surfboard if you don’t have many thousands of dollars.
A truely sustainable surfboard is the one bodysurfers use. But, we only get to have one each. At least I haven’t seen anyone tandem body surf on purpose.
Ultimately nothing on earth is sustainable as eventually the sun will turn into a red giant and roast everything, that’s if no one sets of those nuclear firecrackers which you guys are hoarding, otherwise it will possibly be earlier !
By the way Paulownia trees take only 4 years to get to millable size, we have some planted in our backyard, enough to sustain 6 boards a year (approximately)… . . .
Tom Wegener tells us that his trees are not doing too well, probably lack of water and nutrients, but thereis plenty of paulownia growing in Australia .
I agree that this is a tough subject in terms accuracy and fairness. Do a search for “eps” or “epoxy” on this site and you will find a wide range of conflicting opinions! Now try that on the web in general, or interview a business owner who uses one material and not the other! It’s almost as if we’ve waded into a political issue with that one.
In the interest of full disclosure, this project is being done by two of my eleventh grade students (I am their Humanities teacher; I teach American Studies). This is an interdisciplinary project with biology and math that these two students created on their own. They were very interested in doing something of personal interest and something that is relevant to the local community. The beauty of the web is that they can make changes to their work and keep on going!
So, obviously at the current level of consumption in America, probably nothing is truly sustainable in the strictest definition of the word. I suppose paulownia seems to come close (depending on how big of a quiver you want). Also, they (the students) are attempting to categorize “green” and “bad” materials (and I know that they need to make some changes there!–obviously MDI is not good, it’s just not as airborne as TDI)–perhaps the site is misnamed?
I know that Swaylocks is intended for surfboard design discussion, so I TRULY appreciate the feedback anyone here has to offer these students. We have already spent a lot of time in the Swaylocks archives, and they are learning a lot from the accumulated wisdom here.
I have a question here–how would you all characterize polyester resin? It sure doesn’t seem too “green” to me. Since it relases VOC’s and can be pretty toxic to humans, they have characterized it as a “bad” material. I am not really a chemistry expert (like I wrote, I’m a humanities teacher :)), so I would appreciate any advice here.
Gracias, Mahalo, and Kulo! Thank you!
Generally, I don’t think you can say that there are many sustainable surfboards. I think there are a lot of people trying hard to make them “greener” than they normally are. We’re trying to make stronger boards, so that could be similar, but the resources are still petroleum based.
One thing we’re trying to do is to make a hollow wood board. We’re using the techniques pioneered by Tom Blake, Paul Jensen, Rich Blundell and others.
My brother bought templates from Rich and Roy Stewart, but Roy’s design’s are a bit different. I think my brother will eventually make a dragon board, because he like’s things that are different. I’m going with the smaller, more traditional shapes. I figure these techniques are better because we make a bunch of ribs and stringers and cover that structure with a skin. We don’t take long solid pieces and then chamber them.
We’ve also purchased bamboo cloth so we won’t be using fiberglass, but my brother is also looking at a no glass solution. We’re not sure what kind of glue we’ll use. We’re still cutting skeletons at this time, and will need to settle the glue issue before we can move on to the skins.
My brother has even bought a couple of new toys to create the flat thin pieces of wood we need from large chunks or pieces of thick lumber.
I’m going around and trying my best to make arrangements with landowners to take away old Wiliwili trees when they get cut down. I fear that one day the only way we’ll see this wood is in books or things that have been built from it. Problem is that most of the dead trees have a lot of tiny holes in them from the bugs that are eating them away.
We’re taking wood that would have gone to a landfill and trying to make something from it.
Good luck with your project. I think it’s a great project to teach the kids about the environmental affects of choices they make. Here’s a little feedback on your site:
EPS is expanded polystyrene, not extruded. XPS is frequently used to abrieviate extruded.
best not to have web page names that have spaces. this results in url encoding that is hard to read.
a browser needs to operate full screen on a 1024x768 display to prevent horizontal scrolling when viewing the website. this can make it annoying to view for some people. other than that it look good.
sustainability is only one aspect of “greenness”. VOCs have nothing to do with sustainability. this as has already been pointed out I think.
It’s a noble project ,keep moving forward. I stopped reading your web page when I got to the “Pop Out” surfboards. Time to narrow down what we are talking about. Pop Out means many things to many people. Heck, when I was a kid “Pop Out” was a surfing move.(back in the day!)
I’m no tree hugger but I’d like to make a suggestion. The three R’s
REDUCE
REUSE
RECYCLE
Most kids see surfboards as something not worth fixing. If you damage it just get a new one. Try talking to an 18 year old about using 6 oz glass instead of 4 oz. Most just give me a blank stare like I’m the crazy one. I just want to make them a stronger board that will last longer. There’s something cool about breaking a board or believing that you need four boards per year…
My new car gets 28 mpg but my truck is much more fun to drive!!!
Have a great weekend
Ray
“Sustainable Surfboard’s mission is to collect and publicize information about the ecological impact of surfboards.”
A couple relevant links to check out:
Howzit stingray, There were a few people I made boards for that had a tendency to break them a lot. I was able to show them that using 6oz on the bottms made a difference in board duablity and didn’t add hardly any weight. Need less to say their parents are a lot happier now that they aren’t buying boards every 3-4 months to replace the broken ones. Aloha,Kokua