new wave of sustainability for the surf industry
The surf industry, long a bastion of rebels and anti-corporate types, has grown up in the past decade. According to Surf Industry Manufacturer’s Association (SIMA), the combined surf/skate industry posted respectable retail sales of $7.22 billion in 2008. That’s a far cry from the days when most surfboards were shaped in local garages. And while the surf community has generally been comprised of environmentally conscious individuals, the materials and production of surfing equipment and surf wear is at odds with that ideal. Two California companies, however, are working to reduce the environmental impact of traditional production.
Green Foam Blanks and Resurf.org are two San Clemente, Calif.-based organizations trying to add a bit of “sustainability” to the surfing industry. Green Foam Blanks, founded by Joey Stanley and Steve Cox, creates recycled polyurethane “blanks,” the foam core inside of a surfboard. Most of the 750,000 surfboards produced annually are made using polyurethane foam, the production of which releases toxic chemicals, carbon dioxide, and volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere. The company hopes to reduce the demand for new polyurethane by recycling the waste created when shaping a surfboard from a new block of foam. About 20 percent percent of the foam is discarded after shaping a new board, and Green Foam has developed a method of recycling the unused scrap.
“For the last 50 years, all this waste has been going straight to the landfill and still is today,” Santley said in a recent New York Times article.
Resurf.org, a non-profit organization created by the Green Foam founders and Matt Biolos, is recycling neoprene (a common material in wetsuits) to make yoga mats, surfboard leashes, and sandals. The company also takes old or broken surfboards, and reduces them to a dust that has other practical uses, such as filler for asphalt. Neoprene waste from wetsuits is estimated to total 250 tons a year–a significant source of material for recycled products.
Both Green Foam Blanks and Resurf.org are niche players today, but they represent a potentially important shift within the industry towards lower-impact manufacturing.
