Surfers love the great outdoors. Some of their very best days are spent entirely outside from sun up to sun down, catching waves and relaxing on the beach. So, for the most part surfers are very environmentally conscious and do everything they can to help take care of the earth. The major exception is surfboards. Almost all surfboards are created from polyurethane, a fossil fuel that is pretty rough on the earth.
Ask any environmentalist and they will tell you that the worst part of surfing, environmentally speaking, is polyurethane surfboards. However, polyurethane boards offer the best performance and are affordable to manufacture.
However, a California company is hoping to prove that foam made from algae-oil can replace polyurethane with the same performance and at a cost that is only $10 higher per surfboard. According to an article in Surfer written by Justin Housman, entitled "Growing Foam,"
"Lots of government and private funds are being pumped into labs to turn our little green friends into a cleaner, friendlier petroleum. It just so happened that Mayfield, who was already researching algae oil, is a dedicated surfer. When Arctic Foam starting sniffing around for algae-based PU, Mayfield was just the right surfer-scientist to helm the lab side of the project."
The hope is that in a little over a year, mainstream manufacturers will start adopting algae-oil based foam in their surfboard production.
We would be thrilled to offer surfboards that were gentler on the environment. Please contact us for all your surfing gear, we have an unbelievable selection of equipment, accessories and apparel.
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