In case you didn’t know, Picture is also active in the summer with its surfing Family. It is represented among others by the My Leash team composed of Léa Dezes, Leo Pergher, Lénaik Doyen, Robin Guyonnet and Frederic Lecoq who is like a team manager.
The idea of making a recycled Picture surfboard came from Frederic. Hereunder the first step of his innovative project followed by a few pictures:
Text: Frederic Lecoq
We all agree that outdoor sports activities should be as much as possible in harmony with the natural environment in which we practice them. Among outdoor sportsmen, surfers have always been exemplary in terms of respect for the environment. However, most of products used for the manufacture of surfboards are far from being exemplary regarding eco-design.
A surfboard is made of a polyurethane foam blank (in some cases polystyrene), a wooden stringer, fiberglass and polyester resin (or epoxy in some cases). Many attempts to move towards greener products did not bring the expected success.
Unfortunately, a devoted surfer will consume 1 or 2 boards a year. Sometimes his boards will break. A professional surfer may consume twenty boards a year (most of them are directly dumped at the waste collection center).
So when Picture Organic Clothing gets from the garbage a broken in two longboard, the idea is simple, why not recycling this board into a new one?
Step 1: recycling the foam
From a 9 feet (about 2m70) board we will take a part of the foam, reshape it, give it a new life by turning it in a 6 feet (about 1.80m) surfboard. The whole point of this project is to waste a minimum of materials of which we do not yet know how to properly recycle it, and so having a reborn surfboard. Picture already makes something new out of scrap fabrics by using them for the lining of its jackets and pants. So we just go for it!
Heading to the Clean Cut Surfboard workshop in Anglet where Johan Leconte will guide us and help us to redesign the surfboard.
Volumes will have to be rethought as well as the outline, the rocker of the board, and after a few minutes of reflection, there we go! We take the saw, the plane, and several sanding blocks to shape a retro style surfboard. This process saves nearly 2kg of foam.
We are only at the beginning of the process, but we are sure the result will worth our investment in this project.
Next: Step 2 Stratification Step 3 finish!
