I love this program! Waste to Waves takes discarded styrofoam packing–the kind that holds your new computer or TV steady in the box, or stabilizes furniture you had delivered, or many other packing applications–and recycles it to be used as the form for new surfboards. Most of that bulky white styrofoam (the specific kind is called EPS, Expanded Polystyrene) can’t be recycled by your trash collection or recycling company, so it gets thrown away to sit in landfills for, oh, about a million years as it steadfastly refuses to biodegrade. Instead, surf shops throughout California have drop offs for this particular blocky waste, and a company called Marko Foam makes the rounds and picks it up and reprocesses it into surfboard “blanks” (the buoyant core inside a resin board).
There are even great volunteer opportunities to help with the whole process of keeping this stuff out of our oceans and landfills–except when it is in the ocean as a great new surfboard. This is all part of Sustainable Surf.
I’m so tempted to add some lame faux-surf lingo pun here, but I will stay strong and avoid the temptation. Just go and learn more, and get involved!
Change by Doing 