Hi gang, I’m doing some research into ecologically sound surfboard manufacturing techniques.
Ostensibly for an article in Australia’s Surfing Life magazine, but it’s also out of sheer writerly curiosity.
To help me make sure I don’t miss any of 'em, could you:
tell me names etc and any details of any “eco-board” technologies, processes etc that you’ve heard about in the past 20 years or so, anywhere in the world
give me your considered opinions - why do you reckon none of 'em seem to have made it, ie had serious commercial success?
Hopefully this is OK with everyone; I’ll ask further permission for the use of any quotes etc.
Ive done all your research for you over the last few years. There is lots around, only a handful of people in Australia are giving it a go outside of the wood arena and its hard because we don’t have the materials available here yet. And then there is the cost issue, which I think wont be an issue soon as petro costs increase and renewable materials start to be manufactured on a larger scale.
BUT the materials are available, they just havent been made specifically for the surfboard industry and are kind of hard to find- i.e resins designed for flooring, foams designed for building and construction.
Gary McNeill on the GC has made some efforts and done a lot of research and experimentation with alternative materials. Sugar based foam, hemp cloth, bioresin.
Have a chat to the boys in Thailand, I have heard that they have had access to some amazing 100% vegetable based resins and foams that are completely non toxic but they didnt take them on board because of the fact that they were not bright white and they thought there wasnt a market for creme coloured boards. go figure.
like the rest of the surf industry (besides boards), green remains a niche market but I can attest to the fact that the demand is there.
Good luck with your green issue. I hope that it tackles the issues with enthusiasm and sincerity and doesnt just make fun of hippies and skim the surface like the last one seemed to do. The grommets that read your mag have a greater understanding and awareness of ‘green’ issues than the older generations give them credit for - they learn about it all day in school and see it over the media - something that never happened when I was at school. Dont be afraid to inspire them!
Get in touch with Tris Cokes at www.homeblown.co.uk they are one of the industry leaders in eco board development and materials. They produce a bio foam and have a bio resin that’s almost 100% natural - they’ve made a load of progress in materials over the last few years and have production under license in South Africa, Hawaii and (maybe still) in the US. There base is here in Cornwall UK.
He’s a great guy and will be very helpful for your research.
You hit the nail on the head on 2 counts…the bio foam is a step towards greener production but still is a composite of bio and petro chemical ingredients…and longevity is definately a major factor in sustainability…
I think the high performance boards that are built lighter and therefore snap/deteriorate quicker are clearly boards that have the greatest impact on the environment…
I’ve been looking at your boards on the wonderweb for some years and I am in total awe of your craftsmanship…amazing!
Nick, i will give my opinion. i Think that making a board that has the least amount of an negative ecological effect is extremely important.
one way to do this that currently available for all manufacturers here right now for neglible cost increase.
make the board with the strongest grade pu foam your blank manufacturer provides. Shape the least foam as possible from the deck crust. Then glass the board with multiple layers of glass … even “gasp” 6oz. put a finish coat on the board and leave it to cure for at least a month!
it is that easy. the board will last several years.
put it like this. every board we make wastes close to 40% of the raw materials we buy in the fist place to construct it. there is all the excess foam we shape off, the wood we dont use out of the whole sheet the stringers are made from, the glass we cut of the nose and tail areas in the outline, the resin that runs on the floor and gets sanded back off into the atmosphere. the styrene that evaporates, the airbrush mist that never makes onto the board etc etc…
every board we make that lasts a few weeks/months is more waste going into landfill or the air etc. so if a board last 5 years instead of 5 months, how much less waste is put into our precious environment? sure you get bored with one shape after a while but thats when you trade it or onsell it to the next person. it might get handed around for a few years instead of everyone buying a newy every couple months.
What’s “green” or “eco-” depends upon one’s scientific theories, belief systems (informed or otherwise), or lack of either.
I don’t understand the thought that something that came out of the earth, and goes back into the earth, is necessarily an environmental problem. Depends on how its done, in my opinion.
I don’t necessarily believe that killing trees is any worse of a crime, or better of an act, than using oil, or soybeans. Pretty much depends on how all of it is done, in my opinion.
I have boards that were built 25 years ago that are still rideable. I have boards that were made last year that someone snapped in two and left by the side of the road (I picked them up and brought them home). Which one is hurting the environment? Neither? Both? What if I fix the latter one, is more eco-logically correct now?
I do think it’s logical to make things that last, or at least make them fixable. But its not always obvious what’s best for the environment; the world is just not that simple.
Oh yeah, I’ve always grown my vegetable garden organically and my balsa boards ride peachy, but my last anti-nuke demonstration was in the 70s, thanks for asking.
Dont know if someone has already mentioned this above, but to me along with the use of green material, it has to last a long time. Consider a board thats made with 50% “green” materials that only lasts a year for an average surfer (two weeks for a pro?) vs a board made from 10% “green” materials that lasts a solid 3-5 years. A board in a landfill is a board in a landfill regardless.
Overall energy cost of manufacturing and shipping product, along with how much of that is renewable, must be factored in with the service life of the product.
Where does the energy come from/how much is used to process vegetable based resin? If the electricity comes from a coal burning power plant and the amount of electricity used in processing is more than for a typical PE or EPOXY, then it isnt any greener imo. Im just using vegetable based resin as an example here, this is not factual information, just made it up to illustrate my point.
Dont think there is some absolute “green” scale for surfboards, its all relative.
Its a complex problem for sure, have fun with it, and please share your report when us when you are done.
Fixing a broken board, is one of the greenest things you can do in my opinion.
Recycling the waste has the most influence. No matter how hard you try to make a green board, as long as you are glueing stuff together, it will never be recycled afterwards.
But all this green stuff is good because it makes people aware of the environment! It’s less important what is the greenest, as long as people are busy with it, there is improvement!
I can be wrong but I have the feeling that in the US it’s all black or white. You make a green board or you don’t, you drive a hybrid or a huge pickup (I’m always amazed by the size of the cars I see in the pictures from time to time).
This range of boards relates to ‘Homeblown’ mentioned above and claims to be a step forward in eco friendly boards.
I second the above about repairing and re-using boards, make tham waterproof and keep surfing them, I’ve seen people having fun on boards held together with gaffer tape.
Always nice to see you here. Bet you expected one from me …
Comes down to three things which everyone knows. Reduce, Recycle, Reuse.
Reduce … use less material to build a board. We reduced resin consumption by 2/3rds in the 80’s. We reduced resin emmisions (VOC’s) by 99% over standard polyester production. We elimininated clean up solvents all together, 100% reduction and eliminated toxic waste at the same time.
Recycle … We began recycling foam scrap in the mid 90’s. As of today we have saved literally cubic acres of foam scrap from the landfill. All that scrap went back into new EPS foam so it wasn’t reused as a by product.
Reuse … in this case build better durability. We’ve done studies on our production (when we did both technologies) and the avarage lifespan of the epoxy based surfboard was over double the lifespan of a standard polyester board. Better durability is far and away the best method of eco production … most effective way of reducing footprint. It far out strips any other method or consideration.
The future
Timberflex is now come into being and the guys here are building these and many understand the concept. So I’ll once again go through reduce, recycle, reuse.
Reduce … Our standard epoxy shortboard resin use is 40 ounces of resin … little over a liter. Building T-Flex the total is 24 ounces. A further reduction of 40%. For coparison the average polyester surfboard uses 128 ounces.
Recycle … EPS core same as above.
Reuse … We estimate from our tests that the lifespan of a Timberflex board will be 5 times that of a standard epoxy board or about 10 times that of the standard polyester. And this is with considerable performance benefit and performance durability. Since the tech involved only adds a short vacuum bag step to the standard “shape and glass” building process, it seems there shouldn’t be any issue with manufacterers stepping up. It’s no more difficult or time consuming than an airbrush. BTW this tech is being GIVEN away right here on this forum … for FREE!!! We even have youtubes on the method … again for FREE!!
When I go to the container park (that’s what we call the places where we have to bring the non-regular garbage) there is a special container for EPS, when you put EPS in there, you know it will get recycled! It doesn’t feel like dumping some garbadge.
Compsand is definately greener than the regular construction, but still, the surfboard won’t get recycled afterwards. But far as I know there is no surfboard that will, exept from the wood+lindseedoil boards.
Has anyone tried a compsand with natural fibres yet? Hemp, flax or jute?
None of this is rocket science, or new. I’ve always heard it as “use it up, wear it out, make it do”… a WWII saying I believe? I just repaired a Firewire that was given to me in a sorry state - delammed and full of water, weighed about 15 lbs - by a guy who was going to throw it in a trash can. I fixed it with a couple bucks worth of balsa wood, EPS packing foam (which I got from a thickness planer packing crate - no need to melt it down, just cut to shape with a Japanese saw) and some RR epoxy that one of you guys left at my house. Oh, and fiberglass cut-offs from glassing a longboard. it’s going to a kid in my neighborhood, because every 10 year old ought to have a $700 surfboard, right?
See that last part, is part of the problem. When I was a kid nobody I knew had new boards (or new bikes, or new skateboards, etc), it was all hand me downs. When our jeans ripped we patched them or made cutoffs. Nowadays the kids all want something new and shiny, “like the pros” (wear/ride/pimp)… the magazines tell them so. Take away the consumer mentality, and you solve a lot of the “green” issues… (of course every pro has a con - if you’re like me and can’t throw anything away, you DO have to deal with a lot of clutter. )
One minor point, I don’t see (properly designed) “landfills” as being a big issue, unless there is leaching/leaking into aquifers, etc. Burying stuff is one of nature’s ways of recyling. That oil was down there 1/2 million years, so what if it takes some foam or plastic 10,000 to dissolve… if its buried under enough dirt, what’s the harm? Your mileage may vary…
Over the past 4 or 5 years I’ve developed some variations of eco-friendly boards. At the end of the day, though, i’m not so sure how eco-friendly the materials actually are, and if it even makes a difference in the big picture- surfboards being just a tiny fractional user of materials- but, whatever else, it is (was) a statement.
Quote .“See that last part, is part of the problem. When I was a kid nobody I knew had new boards (or new bikes, or new skateboards, etc), it was all hand me downs. When our jeans ripped we patched them or made cutoffs. Nowadays the kids all want something new and shiny, “like the pros” (wear/ride/pimp)… the magazines tell them so. Take away the consumer mentality, and you solve a lot of the “green” issues… (of course every pro has a con - if you’re like me and can’t throw anything away, you DO have to deal with a lot of clutter. )”
Keith
I totally agree with that statement. Consumer mentality is the greatest threat / stumbling block to sustainability and changing it is the biggest challenge. Act local , think global buy or make surfboards that will last and support those who are trying to make a difference.
It will take time to turn the ship around it’s been on this course for a long time but some influential trend mongers are seeing a dollar value in being green so let’s hope.
