What is sustainability?
A word that's plastered on every product from surfboards to sunscreen. But what does sustainability really mean? And more importantly, how is labeling everything as sustainable preventing us from taking meaningful accountability and action?
If we define sustainable as something that can be maintained at a certain rate or level, those metal straws touted as the pinnacle of eco-friendliness are supposed to reduce consumption to a maintainable rate. And this sounds like a good thing. But for how long can we make metal straws considering they take mining and manufacturing: two more generations, five more?
Anything can be sustainable if you pick the right time window. Even atom collisions in supercolliders create new elements that last milliseconds before degrading. Holding your breath underwater is sustainable for at least a few dozen seconds.
Not saying what or how long something is sustainable for is like stopping a paragraph mid
The surf industry loves to paint itself green. As ocean lovers, surfers are often portrayed as climate-conscious nature enthusiasts. But take a closer look at our gear. PU foam and resin in our boards? Mostly from crude oil. Paraffin in surf wax? Petroleum again. Neoprene in wetsuits? You guessed it - oil.
This isn't to say surfing is destroying our oceans. There are far worse ways to spend your time, especially if you're mindful about your gear. But we're responsible for the choices we make.
Some manufacturers are turning to natural sources for surfing products, like bioplastics. But a study by Royer et al. (2023) at Scripps showed that compostable plastics aren't the same as biodegradable. In their nearly year-long study, plastics from plant and crude oil sources degraded similarly. It turns out plastics behave like plastics, regardless of their origin.
There's also the unseen side of sustainability: what happens to products when we're done with them. Donation seems like a clean solution, but in our consumer-driven society, new imports often outcompete second-hand goods. Much like fashion waste, our excess often ends up shipped to the global South.
So what's a conscientious surfer to do? Repair before replacing is a good start. Digging out a golf ball-sized chunk of foam to fix a ding uses hundreds of times less material than getting a new board. Keep that wetsuit an extra season and patch it up when needed. Seek out natural surf waxes that don't shed petroleum into the water.
When you do buy “sustainable” products, ask questions. How long are they sustainable for? Who are they sustainable for? How does producing the product affect those that live next to the factory? If the answers aren’t “indefinitely,” “everyone,” and “they benefit,” that should tell you something.
Perfection isn't the goal here. But claiming we're doing good when we're not is worse than doing nothing at all. It removes the incentive to actually improve. So let's keep paddling towards real sustainability, even if the paddle out sucks.
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Interesting piece. I always thought that surfers were super bad when it came to sustainability. Boards snap super easily and wetsuits last a season or two max before being dumped. But this isn’t just surfing. If you look at everything, nothing is built to last. Sadly.
I’m trying to use stuff longer and buy less. My current wetsuit is flushing and has holes. I’ve patched it a few times but I wanna wear it as long as possible to avoid waste, and ultimately save me some cash.
Great piece. I’ve got a wetsuit that’s now almost a decade old. It’s been repaired several times (at no cost to me, by Patagonia) and it’s changed my opinion on how long things can last with care and repair. I think we’re on the cusp of a sustainability revolution in surfing (Stab’s latest EAST is all flax boards) and there’s a new film doing the rounds of the film festivals called The Big Sea about neoprene and cancer alley. But, like you said, what really is sustainability?