Australia's Surfing Life Magazine

ASL’s Green issue TOP TIPS

Written by Administrator Friday, 17 July 2009 00:00

In our Green issue we interview a surfer named Josh Floyd, who’s also a lecturer at the National Centre for Sustainability at Swinburne University, Melbourne. We asked Josh to give us his tips to reduce our impact on the environment, and added a few from Tim Baker, who writes the major feature on the state of our oceans. Not all of these are going to work for everyone, but there’s a lot here to get you started.

1. Take an interest in what it takes socially to live a surfing life—this includes how we treat each other both in and out of the water. If you’re already sold on environmentally aware surfing, go easy with the green evangelism. It’s better to keep other surfers engaged and interested than it is to try forcing them to see things your way—be an example to other surfers, rather than making examples of them.

2. Take an interest in what it takes materially to live a surfing life—where does the stuff that you use come from, and where does it go after you’re done with it? What happens out of your sight in order for you to have that stuff for a while? Use an Ecological Footprint Calculator to work out the impacts of your day-to-day life, and to find ways of reducing them (e.g. www.wwf.org.au/footprint/calculator).

3. Factor in expected service life when buying boards and wetties (and other gear too)—while most of us would tend to steer clear of anything that we knew had a shorter than average expected life, we don’t have to settle for the “industry standard” here. If enough surfers intentionally seek out products designed for a longer life, more designers and manufacturers are likely to respond to this demand.

4. Buy equipment that’s designed for re- or down-cycling. Has the designer thought about what will happen to the product after you’re finished with it? Is the supplier committed to developing programs for taking your old products back at the end of their working life?

5. Seek out products that have been designed for lower-impact manufacture (e.g. fewer and less toxic emissions or other waste streams).

6. Repair broken boards and damaged wetties; if they no longer meet your needs donate to anyone who can’t afford their own gear—your junk pile may be a gold mine to another surfer.

7. Re-purpose, recycle or down-cycle your old equuipment that can’t be fixed. For example, turn the arms of an old wetsuit into stubby holders; turn old boards into garden furniture; or even better, old boards and wetties could be used to insulate your house. Seriously!

8. Reduce air travel and car use—travel by bike, train, bus or boat (hitch a ride on a cruising yacht or freighter) for your next surf trip. If you are driving, get maximum number of bums on seats.

9. Eat locally produced food on surf trips—but be aware of what this means for the locals, especially in remote areas where they might not be expecting you. In these cases, it might be better to bring your own food (and take your rubbish home with you). If you’re on a boat trip, make sure you know the status of local fisheries; which fish are abundant, which are being harvested at unsustainable rates. Take a reusable water bottle, and use water filters if necessary, rather than buying bottled water.

10. If you can’t (or don’t want to) reduce air travel and car use for surf trips, offset this by reducing car use at home—use public transport, bike or walk around town.

11. Reduce the amount of meat and other animal products you eat. For anyone with the typical Aussie diet, animal products including meat account for a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, water use and other impacts. Reducing your impacts here doesn’t mean going to extremes, anything less than what you eat now will make a difference, so do whatever works for you.

12. Subscribe to a renewable electricity product from your electricity retailer—this is another way to reduce the overall impact of your day-to-day life.

13. If your local spot is within riding distance of your house – ride instead of driving.

14. … but if you absolutely feel that doing circle work in the carpark on flat days is a basic human right, at least convert the Commodore to electric power.

15. After you’ve done everything you’re willing to do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, consider voluntary offsets. For an independent rating of offset providers, see www.carbonoffsetwatch.org.au.

16. Keep an eye out for non-petroleum, biodegradable wax—and ask questions about its impacts both during manufacture and use. Does the manufacturer provide information on how their non-petroleum product stacks up against regular wax? Don’t just assume that it is better!

17. Recycle your old wax—collect wax scrapings in a plastic container, heat in a saucepan of water to melt, skim off  body hairs, dead skin etc, leave to cool and you’ve got a new block of wax [Note: I realise this is maybe pushing the boundaries of credibility, but I tried it and it seemed to work, even if the wax was a kind of grey colour]

18. Take extra rubbish home from the beach, instead of leaving yours behind.

19. Use tank water for rinsing wetties. Rig up a solar camping shower for rinsing yourself down after a surf.

20. If you live near an ocean sewerage outfall, consider putting in a composting toilet—at least you won’t be surfing in your own shit.

21. Use human power via a hand or pedal generator to charge the batteries for your heated wetsuit (and the time you spend cranking will compensate a little for the increase in winter crowds that this particular innovation will inevitably bring about). www.freeplayenergy.com/products

22. Don’t buy bottled water. We live in a country with some of the best drinking water in the world. When you buy a bottle of water, you’re paying for packaging and transport of a product you get for free. And what are we to make of Fiji Water's claims to be cutting the carbon footprint of its water by 25 per cent and offsetting the rest? "Every drop is green," Fiji Water says. But isn't the whole idea of bottling water on a remote South Pacific island and shipping it to a Milk Bar in Australia just a tiny bit barmy?

23. Be a conscious traveler. Before you stay in a hotel on the coast, ask staff what happens to their sewage and swimming pool water, and if they source their restaurant fish from sustainable sources.

24. Fill your yard with native species. Reducing the amount of grass in your lawn by planting native shrubs and flower beds will provide a better habitat for birds and other wildlife and require far less water and fertilizer, which can seep into the oceans.

25. Don’t buy coral products. Whether shopping for jewelry, household décor or accessories for your fish tank, do your part to leave fragile coral reef habitats untouched by buying products that aren’t made of real coral.

26. Choose sustainable seafood (see www.abc.net.au/science/features/fish/table.htm). Avoid long-lived and slow-growing species, deep sea species, sharks and rays, endangered species and imported seafood.