Why are Epoxy Surfboards Better For The Environment?

Surfing is getting More Environmentally friendly than ever before we as a tribe are more conscious and environmentally aware of our actions as a surfer. In the creation of our beloved surf creations we use our fair amount of toxic products from surfboards, foams & wetsuits to our not so environmentally friendly travel plans that might include a trip to Bali or a few hours drive to get to the perfect surf.  But with more and more eco-friendly options available can me chose to be a more environmentally friendly surfer with the products we buy. electric cars, recycled products, bags for life and getting rid of any single use plastic is a great start but  but as surfers how can we chose our surf gear to be better for the environment. There is a growing movement to make more eco-friendly surfboards and other surf products. There are some incredible new product that we are working on ourselves in partnership with other companies to procure more ECO friendly surfboards but most of the surfboard industry uses PU foam + Polyester resin or Epoxy resin with an EPS Foam with most smaller surfboard companies still use polyester resin and polyurethane resin from the 60s

Looking in to these 2 main types of production of surfboard in the world we wanted to ask the question which one is better for the environment and why. Ats SBS boards we started out making PU boards back in 2010 all the way through to 2013 until we switched complete to epoxy construction across all our board. the reason were mostly performance based advantages with others like better durability and more ECO friendly that PU boards. Below are our reasons why we think Epoxy Surfboards are better for the environment 

Better for the environment

We use epoxy resin because it’s much stronger and less toxic than polyester resin. Polyesters resins contain styrene which is subject to increasingly stringent controls on emissions. Epoxy’s do not generally cause any problems with atmospheric pollution and epoxy resin has 75% fewer VOCs (Volatile Organic compounds) contained in the resin itself and two-thirds fewer VOCs are released into the atmosphere than from polyester resin (VOCs are a source of air pollution and can be a significant health hazard). Their are also companies working on a fully recycles surfboard  with high performance starting from grinding down eps and then melting it to be combined with new foams or a reusable resin that after a few years of using your board you can take it back to its original state to be reuse. there are a lot of exciting prospects in the surfboard industry today. At SBSboards we at experimenting with bio foams that still have an incredible  performance and  rigid flex but is 100% biodegradable, 99% bio based, and carbon neutral. In our view epoxy is the resins of the future with numerous of different concoctions and applications, it’s such a tunable medium! Research into renewable, bio based, epoxy resins such as “super sap” are producing some incredible results especially when compared to polyester which is less tunable, cheaper more toxic and more, brittle.