Sustainable Surfboard Creator

Every morning, Ryan Harris wakes up and rolls out of bed by 5:30 a.m. An hour later, he’s catching waves as the sun rises over Los Angeles, California. Harris surfs on a one-of-a-kind board he made out of recycled materials and eco-friendly supplies. “One of the things I love most is that I get up and go surf on something I made with my own hands,” he says.

Harris is the owner of Earth Technologies, a company that creates sustainable surfboards and paddleboards. Sustainable products meet people’s needs while having a limited impact on the environment. Harris fell in love with surfing more than 20 years ago. But he later found out that the materials used to make surfboards are incredibly toxic for the people crafting them—as well as for the planet. Harris spoke with Science World about his journey to invent a safer and greener way to build surfboards.

I studied design in college. Later, I moved to Los Angeles and was immediately immersed in surfing. I just fell in love with the sport. I was always an artist, so I found my calling painting boards and eventually learning to make them. I had no idea I would be doing this as a career, but now I’m a surfboard craftsman and designer.

The processes used to make most surfboards aren’t good for the environment. The inside of a board is usually polyurethane foam. This flexible plastic material is made from petroleum—oil that’s pumped up from beneath Earth’s surface and used to make fuels and other products. The process of extracting and processing oil is very environmentally damaging. Polyurethane foam also doesn’t biodegrade, or break down naturally. And it’s difficult to recycle. So waste from making traditional surfboards pollutes the environment for decades or longer.

The foam center of a traditional board is coated with fiberglass—a strong, lightweight material made of plastic reinforced with glass fibers. Then it’s sealed with resin, a liquid that hardens as it dries. Both materials are petroleum based as well. The fumes from resin are also very unhealthy for workers making the boards.

When I learned all of this, I thought: This is completely unacceptable. I have to do better. We, as an industry, have to do better. So I started trying to figure out a solution.

It was a lot of trial and error to test different sustainable materials. But now we have a process that’s safe and reduces waste. To float, a surfboard must be less dense, or contain less matter in a given space, than the water around it. So we make the center of our boards out of Styrofoam, a lightweight polystyrene foam. It’s a type of plastic like polyurethane, but unlike polyurethane, Styrofoam can be recycled. We can take scraps from our production process and turn them into new products—keeping the waste out of landfills.

Each surfboard begins as a rectangular block of foam, called a blank. We sculpt the foam with machines and by hand to create the shape we need. Then we coat it with a non-toxic, plant-based resin and sand it smooth. But sustainability isn’t our only goal. Our boards need to surf just as well as the traditional ones—and they do.

People thought I was nuts when I was upcycling broken boards and breathing new life into them. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you can’t do something. We’re getting some of the best ideas from the next generation, so get fired up!