Meet Dakine’s Friendly Foam, But First, Maybe Roll Up Something Organic

In the era of combating carbon emissions, sea level and temperature rise, eco-friendly has a sweet ring to it. After all, the act of surfing is the opportunity to connect with nature, or yell at an eight-year-old who took off without looking because, as Billy Shakespeare once noted, the world’s your oyster.

The materials used for surfing, however, are anything but eco-friendly – from gas in your car, planes, to the carbon footprint left behind by surfboards themselves. That whole fiberglass, polyurethane or epoxy, resin combo isn’t exactly natural. It’s estimated that the surf industry puts out 750,000 surfboards a year, which leads to 220,000 tons of CO2e according to a questionable Google search that led to a website called surfscience.com – take from that hard hitting piece of investigative journalism what you will.

So with all this in mind, Dakine has produced a new foam for their tail pads. It’s called “Friendly Foam”, which will degrade after entering biologically active landfills. And, after the biodegradation takes place, the leftover material is biomass, with trace amounts of biogas, that can be either harvested as renewable energy or burned off.

The goal here: to reduce environmental impact. Which, as we enter the likely turbulent year of 2019, is commendable.

You can shop Dakine traction here.