Golf - Hate It, Love It!

How People Are Starting To Manufacture Surfboards The Green Way

Surfing is a sport that is synonymous with nature. The crashing waves, the fresh sea air and the reliance on mother nature for good surf, all suggest that this is the most wholesome of extreme sports. Environmentalists have recently started rallying however, about the real harms of surfboard production. In actual fact, the production of surfboards has many negative effects on both the environment and peoples health.

The majority of surfboards nowadays are formed from a core of polyurethane foam. A couple of layers of fibre glass then cover this and finally a polyester resin is added as a protector. The foam usually includes a chemical known as toluene diisocyanate, which is considered by many to be a carcinogen. Its production can also create styrene fumes, exposure to which can leas to to problems with the nervous system, on top of headaches, dizziness and confusion. Additionally, carbon dioxide and VOCs (volatile organic components) are released into the atmosphere during production. The majority of surfboard materials are also not biodegradable.

There has been so much attention on the harmful nature of surfboard production that a Californian company, run by Gordon Clark, who make blank boards recently shut down. Clark’s production company was responsible for manufacturing around 85% of all blanks but after being hounded by the State of California, he decided to shut the business down. This has unsurprisingly left a massive shortage of surfboard blanks in the US, and left an number of big organisations searching for alternatives.

Incredibly, one of these alternatives has been found in England, in the county of Cornwall. Biofoam is a new material that was co-founded by the same man responsible for setting up the charity Surfers Against Sewage. Its fifty percent plant-based compound ensures that thirty percent less toxins are produced during its creation and it is a whopping sixty percent more renewable. On top of this, a new 95 percent natural resin coating is now being used on their ‘Ecoboards’.

The makers of the Ecoboards, which use Biofoam have been approached by surf companies from around the world. It is still early days but they soon hope to start applying their eco-technology to the creation of snowboards as well.