Hi all, thanks for your input on this most interesting subject! Keep chucking stuff my way if you haven’t already…
surfinggreen, this is ASL’s first ever Green issue and given the editor’s passion on the subject, I’m sure it won’t be a surface skimming hippie chortle.
Maybe you should talk to the Ice 9 folks in Ca. Their Cane formula is a “greener” foam its a sugar based MDI…They might have some insight.
hey nick.
** we went 60% green with the c d d blank but its to bloody hard to get any recgonition.**
**to bloody hard mate,
**
I have no techniques to offer on this one but I have some questions on EPS. Didn’t some agency in the States ban it from food packaging because it takes 800 years to biodegrade? I thought this might be a point to consider. Also what other chemicals are involved in the production of the pellets of resin(?) EPS beads are blown from? Nothing against EPS, I just think it might be given more credit than it’s due when it comes to environmentally friendliness.
It’s true it takes a long time. That’s why we have to recycle it! If you pack food with it, it wil be dumped with regular garbadge, but when building surfboards you can bring the scraps to a recycle point!
Indeed the board will have a long time to degrade, but at least the scraps get recycled.
Timber and Epoxy earn some carbon brownie points, but Its still a compromise…to make something you exploit something else. So I just try to reduce the wastage, make really nice, durable boards, and use offcuts in my packaging.
Nobody can get through life without using stuff, but we could all go bodysurfing.
Ironically as I scratch my sanding dust itch, I think the biggest factor in the emergence of an eco-board thats not an oxymoron will be a shift from the Bust-em and Chuck-em mentality, to one where durability is paramount.
There is the ingenuity of the seekers in this cottage industry, of which there are some truly leading lights, but they need support and resources.
That means sustained media interest, which creates demand, which attracts investment, and around it goes…
Josh
Quote
“The ASP could chip in by offering extra competition points to pros using earth-friendly equipement.”
Hey Monty
Any surfer or organization involved in the ASP circus should keep really quiet when discussing "green / eco surfing ". They should look over their shoulder and check out the size of the carbon footprint left behind as they jet all over the world with their quivers of disposable boards all in the name of selling the latest 'product X ’ in some urban surf boutique. Shit , they don’t even paddle anymore they are caddied out the back by jetskis.
I think the ASP would like the image of an ethical , green dream tour but I don’t see how it would be achievable unless the ASP toured the world on a sailing ship with competitors on board , eco board builders down in the ship’s woodshop and solar and wind power their energy source.
Cheers
Mooneemick
NIck if you havent already, get in touch with Graeme King from King Foam in Sydney. He is doing a similar thing to Ice9 with a sugar based formula that eliminates almost all of the nasty stuff that cause negative health effects.
Re: Recycling EPS…
Can you put EPS in the compost bin and spread it in the garden…???..I can and do with wood…Saves water and keeps things green…
Re: Recycling EPS…
Can you put EPS in the compost bin and
spread it in the garden…???..I can and do with wood…Saves water
and keeps things green…
PaulJensen…
… classic post
and more. Jensen for president.
Ha! You’re right there MM.
Love the image of the WCT sailing around the world! Can’t see the shareholders going for it though!
[quote=“$1”]
Re: Recycling EPS…
Can you put EPS in the compost bin and spread it in the garden…???..I can and do with wood…Saves water and keeps things green…
I wonder what happens to the urea formaldehyde in the plywood ribs, hot glue, resin, and fiberglass and fin boxes. That was my point before w/ over simplification. Certainly the 30% waste in material during milling can be used in the garden for mulch, at least most species, but I really don’t think anyone’s going to grind up a glassed board with plywood ribs and mulch their garden.
I agree with Speedy though with Carbon brownie points.
Simplicity describes the alaia, no glass, don’t even need glue - maybe a little wax, thats why I like them at the moment, I can leave the crap behind and dont have to shove it in some one elses face. Sponser or not. Took a foam board out after a week on the alaia and it almost seemed too easy. I could just ride the alaia though if the earth, our childrens and even our lives depended on it.
Actually yes you can. Many gardeners and commercial growers use eps beads in lue of perlite to aerate and retain moisture in soils. 
I think it is difficult to make sound judgements on the impact of these products unless we have all the facts. The truth of these matters is so often obscured by subjective market analysis. Even the idea that wood is a better choice may be flawed. Just look at the yield percentages in your own shops. Have you ever seen the waste a single piece of lumber in the yard produces? The resources it takes to harvest and mill wood? And not to mention the altering of natural environments. How much plastic does it take to blow a board?
Re: Actually yes you can. Many gardeners and commercial growers use eps
beads in lue of perlite to aerate and retain moisture in soils.
Thanks for that…I really was just asking a question, not climbing on a high horse…Now I know…
Let’s climb on a high wave. 
Ummmm, Paul, there are many arguments you could make for wood boards but that’s not one of them. EPS beads are sold as a soil additive, they provide aeration and other benefits. I think the trade name is ‘‘Vermiculite’’, or something like that.
While I’m on here, I should mention that Coil builds a durable, low resin content, low VOC emission (vac-lam) product. But our focus is raising the performance bar so we don’t talk about the ‘‘green’’ aspect very much. And we’re far from being a ‘‘mass-market’’, high production/big market share company. Just a few surfers building the best boards we know how…
Oops, need to edit. Didn’t mean to pile on, that’s what happens when you get three phone calls while you’ve got a post partially written and then you put it up without checking what might have transpired. Sorry.
EPS is the most recycled of all recyclables by a VAST margin.
Many EPS manufacturers are now required to include some portion of recycled EPS in their mixtures, regardless of what it is being used for.
Most food packaging foam is now either completely, or mostly recycled EPS.
Their are quite a few companies that are now finding other uses for EPS by breaking it down to its base components and mixing it with other materials to make viable manufacturing grade plastics.
These are the facts of the EPS industry today…not opinions.
EPS has a bad rap from something that was stated 20 years ago.
Does that mean we should all go out and start using EPS? …No…but it is not the primary offender by any means.
Opinions may differ about what is “best” or which direction to take…but ultimately they are all heading to the same destination.
Awareness is the key…and knowledge is power.
As long as we keep SEEKING ways to be more Earth conscious we will get there.
Yes…Eco is what I do…but I have a great appreciation for any board builder that takes even a single step in that direction.
Every step forward is a step FORWARD! No matter how small.
Let’s just keep moving FORWARD!
It was banned from food packaging because of the blowing agent used which was a CFC. The EPS we and most others use is recyclable and is the only foam that is reasonable for recycling. It doesn’t and never has used CFC blowing agents.
The surfboard industry is a small piece of world economy but IMHO that doesn’t exclude us from responsability. We sell resins which double the yield of a surfboard production. For every drum we sell a drum of resin IS NOT used … wasted. A barrel of chemical IS NOT pumped. A barrel of chemical IS NOT produced … wasted. A barrel of chemical IS NOT being dumped into a landfill. IS NOT being emmited into the atmosphere.
I also agree that landfills are not an issue other than a logistic one. But the chemicals laying in that landfill had to be produced and that is where the sin lies. Waste is waste and wasting material costs both in terms of cost of producing the product but also in terms of how those wasted materials production effected the enviroment.
IMHO waste IS the sin. Consumerism certainly aserbates wasteful habits. But as much as we want to beleive that greener tech is an answer, being green is really about the reduction of waste. And IMHO that is the issue that is being lost in the debate. Reduce is about reduction of waste. Recycle is about reduction of waste. Reuse is about reduction of waste. Better fuel economy is about reduction of waste. etc, etc, etc.
BTW, in our production, the real dollar savings we were able to net from our better environmental stewardship doubled our economic bottom line. Being environmental was one of the smartest business moves we ever made.
I got two things:
One - I guess I’m headed in the right direction 'cuz I’d like my boards to be reef proof, and last a long long time, but, then again, I use more glass to accomplish this.
My understanding of land fills is: They are a problem period.
The way we bury waste in the US keep much of anything from even starting to “biodegrade.” One article I read talked about steaks in packages w/dates from the 60’s, unearthed 40 years later, still looking and smelling eatable. High tech/quality burning for energy production sounds better from what I know.