Greening the Green Room

by Sam Bleakley

The green room – inside the tube - is the ultimate destination for every surfer. Lost in liquid, it’s a place where time travel seems possible, sliding in surreal slow motion. But despite our quest to find the green room, surfers are about as environmentally green as a Texan oil garden. We paddle out in our PVC-colour-coordinated-petrochemical-outfit and claim to be clean living, but the truth is rather different: surfers worldwide consume three quarters of a million toxic, non-sustainable surfboards per year.

Green, clean equipment hasn’t been the norm since the 1920s, when Hawaiians carved alaia and olo boards from redwood trees. Soon afterwards, surfing’s exponential rise in popularity, thanks initially to the combination of climate and culture in California, was fuelled by oil-based chemicals from the aerospace industry. Surfing had gone toxic, and even the brown-bread-and-sandals-brigade of the Seventies was unable to develop boards to match, let alone exceed, the performance of what had become the norm: non-bio-degradeable boards comprised of fibreglass resin and polystyrene foam.

In the UK, there were rumblings of discontent. Surf Insight magazine was published by West Cornwall surfer Fuz Bleakley in the early Seventies, complete with an ecology page and plenty of environmental awareness. The magazine lasted only four issues, but had a lasting impact. In 1990, SAS hit the headlines – not the elite military outfit but pressure group Surfers Against Sewage, which gave UK surfers a voice to bemoan the then appalling state of many coastal waters.

Awareness of how the environment could be improved to help surfers – and therefore everyone who enjoys the sea – seemed to have become embedded. But last year those who took for granted surfing’s status as the healthy lifestyle option par excellence were given a rude awakening. US polyurethane board-building giant, Clark Foam, was closed down because its products had become too toxic for Californian environmental laws.

Fast forward just a few months and a new wave of green-minded boards is emerging, with a shift towards epoxy, which uses 20 per cent less polluting VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) than Sixties-style foam and fibreglass. Changes are happening worldwide, but the zeitgeist is nowhere more evident than in the hotbeds of surfing in the UK, Devon and Cornwall. Penzance-based UK Soul – www.uk-soul.com - sell 100% green paulownia wood boards, and Loose-Fit - www.loose-fit.co.uk - in North Devon plant a tree for every surfboard sold. At the Eden Project near St Austell, SAS founder-member Chris Hines is developing the “eco-board,” made from balsa wood cut from a balsa tree growing in one of Eden’s tropical biomes.

But no matter how many people switch to hemp and beeswax boards, we still have a problem. Welcome to the biggest irony of modern surfing: jet travel. One long-haul plane journey to a bigger, better, warmer green room puts more carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas responsible for global warming) into the air than a family would generate at home in three months. The surfer’s inherent desire to travel is stoked by the surfing media and its seemingly endless array of perfect overseas waves.

Fortunately, there are those who are not afraid to confront this paradox at the centre of modern surfing. The EcoSurf Project -www.ecosurfproject.org - has emerged with a bold and simple agenda: to create a sustainable, environmentally-friendly, socially responsible future for surfing and related surfsports such as windsurfing and kitesurfing. Combating air travel pollution, ESP is pioneering the “Carbon Neutral Surfer” scheme. Trees draw carbon out of the atmosphere, so planting masses can help balance the carbon dioxide generated by flying. Cornish legend and tube-riding matador, Dan “Mole” Joel, has become a carbon neutral surfer. For every flight he makes a sponsor pays ESP to plant enough trees to make his net impact on the atmosphere zero. Another breath of fresh air is blowing from Global Boarders near Penzance – www.globalboarders.com - who are pioneering sustainable surf tourism.

We’re getting there, but there is still work to be done. With the environmental clock ticking, we can’t rely on high tide to wash away our footprints. But if we make an effort to be carbon cool, we all might enjoy a bit more time in the green room.

Sam Bleakley in his own Green Room (c) www.splashography.com

A version of this article first appeared in The Cornishman on 8 June 2006

Comments

[Pete Robinson]

Nice article Sam. You can see one of the Eden Project's eco surfboards on display at our latest exhibition of British surfing history at Aberdeen Maritime Museum from now until September 17th. Aloha.

[Another Sam]

This is a carbon calculator ( http://surfcore.co.uk/carbon ) that we have developed so that normal surfers can roughly gauge the number of trees that need to be planted when they use their car.

We are at the moment trying to set up a service where by surfers can plant trees in coastal locations near to where they have an affinity.

Back in the day the coast would have had dense woodland right up to the edges of the cliff faces. Imagine - it would have been quite a different view from out back, looking towards the shore.

We would like to try to recreate that in parts of the UK.

[Jon]

Ocean Green Surfboards win Green Wave Award

Ocean Green, winners of The Surfer's Path magazine's first ever Green Wave award for surfboard manufacturing, are set to revolutionise the industry with their range of EcoFoil boards due to arrive in Britain this September.

The Green Wave awards are presented for excellence and achievement in promoting sustainability and environmental consciousness in the surfing world.

Based in Newquay, Cornwall, UK, Ocean Green are the only manufacturer in the world developing boards made entirely from natural materials that provide a real alternative to existing products in terms of both price and performance.

OG's founder and co-director Stuart Thomson said, "It's great to be recognised for our work so far, but there is still some way to go before we reach our goal".

Their aim is to replace each of a surfboards three standard base materials (poly foam blanks, fibre glass and petroleum derived resins) with an environmentally sustainable alternative that has equal or better qualities for the job.

An OG EcoFoil replaces the industry standard polyurethane or polystyrene foam blank with a hollow one made from FSC sustainably forested balsa wood grown in Central America, which is significantly more dense, and therefore stronger, than the balsa wood commonly found in our shops.

After the wood has been carefully selected for each particular component, ribs, nose and tail blocks, stringers, rails and deck panels are cut using digitally rendered templates that provide the accuracy needed to assemble a precision blank, similar in construction to an aircraft wing.

From there on the boards are completely hand shaped and finished, a process made much quicker and less wasteful because of the precise assembly of the balsa blank.

The EcoFoils are then glassed with organically grown hemp cloth, an amazing material that, through testing at Bangor University in Wales, has been proved to create a stronger composite, weight for weight, than the usual fibreglass equivalent.

So, with two of the surfboards three base materials already replaced with biodegradable alternatives, it now only remains for a workable natural resin to be found for Ocean Green to reach their goal.

OG's founder Stuart Thomson remarks "the large bio-chemical companies claim they are working on alternatives to fossil fuel based resins, but exactly how much effort they are making is hard to tell. In the meantime we keep in contact with several bio-composite research labs and are prepared to trial any viable solutions they can offer."

The EcoFoils are manufactured at Ocean Green's fair trade workshop near Managua in Nicaragua by a team of six carpenters and shapers. "The guys in the workshop deserve a great deal of credit for this award" said OG's co-director Graham Nicholson, "without their experience and craftsmanship these boards may never have even made it to the water."

Every EcoFoil is truly unique thanks to the beautifully varied grain and natural colours of the balsa wood, and each one is individually numbered and dated by hand so that a boards history can be traced and its ownership certified. After all, a good surfboard should last a lifetime.

The initial EcoFoil range of three board shapes are a 6'8" Thruster 'el Colibrí', a 7'6" Easy Rider 'el Gaviota' and a 9'1" Malibu 'el Águila'. (the Hummingbird, the Gull and the Eagle). There are currently four other board shapes being designed.

After many years of research and development by OG, every surfer now has the choice whether or not to put their money where their heart is. If you would like to be part of the Ocean Green revolution you can start by visiting their website at www.oceangreen.org.

Ocean Green Surfboards
Newquay, Cornwall, U.K.
Tel: 0870 042 1712
Email: contact@oceangreen.org
Web: www.oceangreen.org