The Sustainable Surfboard Project

Every now and again one stumbles across something or someone who makes you think about things a little differently. A person or group of people that create a kind of 'right angle' in your thinking process and set you off on a completely different train of thought, that dare to imagine an altogether different future based on research and facts. Well, I consider myself 'right angled'.

Let's for a moment imagine that Doc Brown, from 'Back to the Future', was into surfing? No, I am not talking about time travel but something that sounds as exciting and interesting, with huge potential ramifications to the surf industry. Imagine you could 'grow' a surfboard. Yep, that's right. Grow a surfboard.

Let's begin at the beginning. In the not too distant past I was lazily flicking through Instagram while waiting for a friend to meet me for a surf when I happened across a picture from some guys calling themselves 'The Sustainable Surfboard Project'. As I am a bit of a surfboard geek I thought I would investigate. This is the first pic that I saw.

So, these guys are looking at things on a molecular level. They are not coming up with a money making spin or some sales jargon to sell you more stuff under the eco-umbrella. They are re-inventing the wheel one tiny piece at a time, or at least attempting to. The best thing is they are not doing it for financial award. I could not resist firing them a message out to see if they could tell me more. Lasse, part of the trio that are 'The Sustainable Surf Project' got back to me with some words that inspired hope and initiated the right angled tangent in my thinking about what is possible for surfboard construction in the future.

Over to Lasse from The Sustainable Surfboard Project to tell you a bit more:

Lasse: We have noticed that throughout the last decades the international surf community has been moving towards a more environmentally friendly direction. Surfers have become more aware of the external environmental challenges which threaten their relationship with the sea and the hunt for the perfect wave.

Surf organizations such as Surfriders Foundation, Sustainable Coastline Hawaii, and Save The Waves are all volunteer-based communities who fight every day for a clean ocean, healthy beaches, accessible and plastic-free coastlines while keeping global climate challenges in mind.

While surfers and surf organizations are focused on the coastal environment and global climate problems, the act of surfing involves products which are not ecofriendly. The primary challenge is the surfboard itself and its negative impact on the environment.

An estimate of 750,000 surfboards are produced each year worldwide and the extraction of raw materials, transport and disposal of these boards have a significant carbon foot print. Additionally, the people who shape and maintain surfboards are exposed to dangerous chemicals such as polystyrene, VOC and isocyanates.

Although there is a budding movement towards greener surfboards, the commercial market has yet to reach a stage where surfers can choose lightweight and torsionally stiff boards while remaining environmentally friendly. We wish to change this.

Our long term goal is to design a surfboard which embodies sustainability without compromising when it comes to strength, torsional stiffness and weight of the board.

We are currently exploring three different approaches:

• Bioresins and Natural Fibres

• Thermoplastics

• Biodegradable materials

The first approach is to make boards from natural fibre and bioresin replacing the traditional boards made from fibreglass and epoxy resin. Such materials are already being utilized by environmentally conscious brands.  The second approach involves thermoplastics where waste plastic is collected from the world’s oceans and beaches and shaped into surfboards made from only one type of polymer, so they can be recycled without the need for disassembly. Lastly, we are exploring biodegradable materials in hope of growing a surfboard that is fully compostable and CO2 neutral.

This is a project we came up with purely by interest. It is correct that we do not seek any financial gain from this. What we are doing now is a pre-study for our bachelor project.

Dan surfs, and is the main man behind the idea. We study at the same study line at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and he pitched the idea to us. I (Lasse) have surfed twice and am generally into board sports like skating and snowboarding. Kristian is active sportsman, but does not have any earlier experience of surfing. We have talked about the strength we can achieve in the project by being of different knowledge of the field.

The project is right now what is corresponding to 20 hours a week (10 ETCS points). So all of us have courses on the side. After January we will up this to 40 hours a week, in addition to the project becoming a bachelor project.

DTU is great at giving the students lots of resources, but we do have contact with sources outside the university.We are in dialogue with Rex Degnegaard, who owns Hornbæk surfshop, an experienced surfer, and is a figure in Danish surfing community. We got some products from the Danish company, Plastix, who recycle old fishing nets into reusable polymer granules. Furthermore we are in contact with a broad variety of experts in different fields.

As long as we are students we will get materials funded by the university. We do not know what the future will bring.

We were quite surprised seeing that the use of natural fibres, like flax, do not have significantly better end results compared to fibreglass in an environmental context (LCA). And even though bioresin is better in the manufacturing stage is still preforms poorly in the disposal stage, where it still ends as landfill waste.

We were also surprised about the possibilities of biomimetic in the sense of how mushroom and biodegradable material can create strong structures. So we are currently experimenting with that as well.

As regarding the transportation of products and the impact on the environment we see some solutions. Firstly, if we succeed with the mushrooms you will be able to grow the board at home. Otherwise the solution is to produce the board as locally as possible.

Thanks for your interest,  Lasse and the Sustainable Surfboard Project Team.

SB: Wow, there you have it. There is hope for the future and it is in the hands in a group of passionate, driven and extremely capable Danish guys. We are going to be keeping in close contact with the guys from The Sustainable Surfboard Project and hope to bring you more on this super exciting research as it happens.

If you want to follow their progress on Instagram, check it out here.

Thanks to Lasse and the team and we implore you to keep up the good work you have the support of all us free thinkers at The Surf Bunker.