Interview with Wave Tribe Founder Derek Dodds

I had the opportunity of chatting with Wave Tribe founder Derek Dodds.  Wave Tribe is doing some excellent things in the green surf space, including using hemp as a board bags fabric, selling upcycled board bags made from used billboards, and manufacturing leashes made with recycled plastic.

In the video interview, Derek talks about how he started Wave Tribe, why he chose hemp as the material for Wave Tribe’s board bags, how Wave Tribe manufactures its gear, and where he sees the surf industry moving with respect to green gear.

Here’s the video interview:

EnviroSurfer’s Incredible Infographic on the Toxicity of Surfing

The team over at EnviroSurfer released a great infographic on the unintended consequences of the surf industry:

Created by Envirosurfer: Eco-friendly Wetsuits & Surf Clothing.

It’s a great image that profiles some of the reasons we’re working over at Evergreen Sessions to help people find eco-friendly surf gear.

EnviroSurfer highlights some alternative solutions for avoiding the dangers highlighted by EnviroSurfer.  Over on Evergreen Sessions, we are actually luck enough to have a bunch of products for people looking to purchase these alternative solutions.  Below are some options if you’re looking for a new, eco-friendly surfboard, wetsuit, surf wax, or sunscreen.  We’re tracking:

• Shortboards: 17 made with epoxy, bamboo, and wood: http://evergreensessions.com/products.php?filter=tag&fid=129
• Longboards: 7 made with epoxy, bamboo, and wood: http://evergreensessions.com/products.php?filter=tag&fid=128
• Wetsuits: 2 made with recycled bamboo: http://evergreensessions.com/products.php?filter=tag&fid=146
• Surf Wax: 5 made with non-petroleum ingredients: http://evergreensessions.com/products.php?filter=tag&fid=54
• Sunscreen: 6 made with all-natural ingredients: http://evergreensessions.com/products.php?filter=tag&fid=140

Visiting Eco Board Works

Eco Board Works' in-house brand of boards, E-Tech.

We stopped by the Eco Board Works facility in Hawthorne, CA a few months ago to chat with Ryan, Todd, and Chano about their facility, the boards they’re making, and their inspiration for opening the facility.

We filmed a short video of our visit, which you can see below.  They encourage people to visit their facility, design a board with them in their design studio, and then jump into the back where they can shape it in front of you.  It’s a pretty cool idea if you’re close enough to the facility to take the trip.  They’re sourcing their blanks using Envirofoam from Marko Foam, using bamboo decks, and plant-based resins from Entropy.

Here’s the video from our visit:

I am also happy to report that Eco Board Works’ surfboard lineup is listed on Evergreen Sessions: http://evergreensessions.com/company.php?id=42

Grain Surfboards

We visited Grain Surfboards headquarters towards the end of the summer and got to check out some of the boards they were working on.  If you’re new to Grain, they build surfboards from locally-sourced wood in Maine.

Grain works out of a giant barn in York, Maine, a beautiful coastal town on the south eastern tip of Maine.  They had just recently held a festival at their headquarters where a bunch of surfers and folks in the surf industry gathered to raise some environmental awareness and talk about creativity in the surf world (Grain’s page on the event) (article on the event).  It’s a yearly event and we’re hoping to make it next year!

The Granite Stoke put together this video from the event:

We stopped by on a Tuesday and they were fresh off of a board building class the previous weekend.  Founder Mike LaVecchia showed us around the barn and we were able to snap a few pictures!

If you’re in the market for a new board, check them out!

Progress: Drug Tests on the World Tour = Legitimacy & Role Models

The ASP announced last week that it will begin random drug testing for athletes starting in 2012.

I can only speak to this as a surfer, a consumer of surf gear, and enjoyer of surf content (including contests), but I see this as a fantastic step for the tour.  Some have argued over at ESPN.com that it doesn’t matter whether the athlete is on drugs as long as they perform well, while others say that drug testing in sports is fundamentally flawed.  If done correctly, however, I believe this step moves the tour forward immensely for two reasons, one that will directly affect the tour and the other indirectly: additional legitimacy for the tour and maintaining role models.

With drug testing comes legitimacy.  As far as I can tell, almost every major sports league drug tests its athletes.  Yes, testing isn’t perfect, but the testing methods show that the league wants drug-free athletes competing.  It protects the athletes and shows that the league is serious about making its sport about fair play.  Testing brings legitimacy to a league.  Sports leagues also drug test because it recognizes that kids watch these sports and look up those sports athlete as heroes, as role models.  Would you want your kid see their favorite athlete involved some type of drug scandal?  No, of course not.  Have you seen the swarm of kids around ASP surfers when they get out of a heat?  They look up to these guys.  Now, we can’t change people — these sports stars are going to do whatever they want to do, especially in the off-season — but, leagues can tell them that it’s no longer acceptable.  It’s not a cure-all, but it’s the right first step to make.

And, so, progress.

- Mike Caruso | evergreensessions.com

(Image credit: fstorr)

FCS Green Flex Fins

While I was out in California, I met up with Matt from FCS and had a chance to chat about FCS’s new Green Project and FCS’s Green Flex fins.  The fins are made from 25% post-consumer material — specifically, recycled used carpet.  They’ve also introduced some new packaging that is made from wood pulp (and therefore you can compost it!).  We’ve got FCS’s Green Flex fins now listed on Evergreen Sessions: http://evergreensessions.com/product.php?id=265 (check ‘em out!)

Here’s the quick interview I did with Matt about the new fins:

Here’s a link to FCS’s press release about Green Flex fins: FCS Green Flex Release

Evergreen Sessions Visits Solid Surf

I had the opportunity of visiting Dan O’Hara at Solid Surf a few weeks ago (see earlier blog post here).  Here’s the video from that visit:

[Profile] Rerip

A few weeks ago, we visited the Patagonia Cardiff Board Swap and had a chance to meet up with the founders of Rerip, Meghan Dambacher and Lisa Carpenter.  Rerip finds ways to save surfboards that would otherwise be thrown out (who wants to see surfboards in the trash!).  The organization is also raising awareness about our need to reduce our collective footprint on the world.  The organization accepts donations of used, damaged, or broken equipment and finds ways to recycle the gear by either giving it to local youth, repairing the damage, or giving the ruined equipment to artists.

The founders of ReRip, Meghan and Lisa

The board swap was a great venue for Rerip, not only because Patagonia Cardiff is a major supporter, but also because of the myriad of boards there.  In fact, throughout the course of the board swap, people donated to ReRip about 10 boards in a variety of conditions that would have otherwise been trashed.

Some boards collected by Rerip during the board swap at Patagonia Cardiff.

One underlying goal of Rerip is keeping surfboards out of landfills.  In addition to fixing boards and giving boards away to kids and artists, the organization is also thinking up inventive ways of using donated boards and other equipment that cannot be riden or repaired.  One way that they have experimented with is using ruined surfboards as a concrete filler, known as Surfcrete.

The organization offers memberships, the proceeds of which help Rerip grow and help maintain a variety of programs designed to keep surfboards out of landfills and in use.  In addition to helping Rerip, a membership donation gets you a Rerip sticker, towel, and water bottle.  Head on over to Rerip’s website, read more about the organization, and consider signing up for a membership!

Visit to Solid Surf’s HQ and Shaping Bay

I had the opportunity to sync up with Dan O’Hara, the owner of Solid Surf Co.  I originally heard about Solid because of the boards they were making from recycled EPS foam.  I had a chance to meet up with Dan at his headquarters to see firsthand what Solid is working on.

Dan sands a board made from recovered EPS foam strips.

Solid’s environmental awareness extends from the type of foam they use to the resin for glassing its boards.  The company uses recycled/recovered foam whenever possible, creates its own blanks from EPS foam blocks, sends its excess foam back to the manufacturer for re-grinding, and just recently introduced a resin that includes pine sap (instead of relying solely on petroleum).

A sanded blank slightly showing the glue lines from the recovered EPS strips.

Solid is conscious of the fact that board creation has an impact on the environment, but they’re trying to make shaping a little more friendly by thinking critically about each part of the board-shaping process.

We have a video from our visit that we’re working on now and should be out shortly.  Stay tuned!

Interview with Kevin Cunningham from Spirare Surfboards

I had the opportunity to interview Kevin Cunningham from Spirare Surfboards a few weeks ago over Skype.  Here’s the interview:

Some links:

http://spiraresurfboards.com/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/408559255/spirare-sustainable-surf-craft

http://evergreensessions.com/company.php?id=39