New leaf or plastic lunch tray?

When he was alive, my father worked for a blood sucking chemical corporation. His job essentially was to sell the little plastic pellets that other blood sucking companies use to make all kinds of things from TV shells to styrofoam cups. The last time anyone gave a crap about the planet was back in the 70’s. Remember the big green “E?” It was about that time that my father began to be involved in learning about recycling plastics. I think it all started when one of his clients got scared by the hippies. For many years they had been packaging their corporate death burgers in styrofoam containers, and it was my Dad’s job to manage that sales relationship, because he ultimately sold the plastic pellets. When the fast food joint went to paper packaging due to public pressure from environmentalists, the writing was on the wall. The Blood sucking chemical corporation decided to investigate and push recycling technologies to combat a potential loss of business.

Fascinating huh? But what does this have to do with green skateboards? Every time plastic is recycled it becomes less and less usable in practical applications. It’s basically only a couple iterations away from ending up as a brown lunch tray in a school cafeteria or correctional facility. And really, how many of those do we need? Green skateboard technologies applied to longboards are nice but not particularly effective in terms of environmental impact unless they can be used to produce a respectable short board for the kids that are going through a deck every three weeks. That’s the reason skateboards have reportedly become the worlds top consumer of hard maple. The market segment for longboards is dramatically smaller than short boards, and once sold, a longboard tends to remain in use over a much longer time period. In fact a year or more isn’t unusual at all.

That being said, the latest entry into alternative green skateboard construction is a Brazillian joint effort between a Let’s EVO and materials developer Fibra Sustainable Design. And it looks like a leaf!

[Source: Treehugger.com] – Thanks to Denny Renshaw for the tip.

The point of my story wasn’t to denigrate the Eco Sk8 project. I’m playing the Devil’s advocate, or in this case Rachel Carson, and pointing out that these technologies so far have not been demonstrated visibly in a way that applies to the overwhelming majority of the hardwood consuming, toxic adhesive applying shortboard riders. So let’s not kid ourselves into being complacent about it. Every time I read about one of the new green skateboards, my immediate reaction is “Great! But it’s nothing more than media fluff unless it works for the average kid acid dropping and kickflipping in the streets and skateparks.” Let’s face it, low impact skateboarding is not even close to the lion’s share of resources being consumed. Maybe Michael Brook has the numbers. He lurks here occasionally, so if you’re reading this, what say you?

Eco Sk8 from Let’s EVO and Fibra Sustainable Design

The outer plys of the Eco Sk8 are made from something called Papunha Veneer, which is a by product of waste from Papunha “plywood” that is actually a non-wood Palmheart plant. The second layer is a composite made from 70% natural fibers native to South America and 30% recycled polypropylene, AKA the plastic lunch tray! Actually, I don’t know which molecule is used for those lunch trays, but you can bet there’s a “poly” or an “ene” in there somewhere. The remaining three inner plies are constructed from an organically produced Brazilian bamboo variety. The whole thing is held together with a vegetable based adhesive.

Enlarge the materials info.

The official web site for Let’s Evo is in English when you get there, but without warning the skateboard project links to another language that I have to assume is Portuguese. It’s a bummer (for honkys) becasue it looks like there’s a lot of information there. The abundant pictures occasionally have an English caption.

Of course they have to test these things once they build them.