"Five years ago, Patricio Guerrero was surfing the rolling waves of Santa Cruz when the leash on his board broke, sending it flying into a nearby cave and shattering its nose. As Guerrero worked on repairs, he was shocked at how much plastic waste was building up beside him. When the board was fixed, he loaded the plastic into the blue recycling bin outside of his house, but the next morning the bin had not been emptied."
""I started talking to my buddies and we realized this was an industry-wide problem. There's so much waste generated from building surfboards," said Guerrero, who is now CEO at Swellcycle, a Santa Cruz company that creates 3D printed surfboards from renewable materials."
"Guerrero has always been interested in building environmentally friendly products. In high school, he converted a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle into an electric vehicle. Later he gained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's in design and manufacturing. Guerrero 3D-printed his first prototype board less than a year after his surfboard broke, marking the beginning of what would become Swellcycle, which aims to turn the tides on surfing's harmful impact on the planet."
Patricio Guerrero encountered non-recyclable surfboard plastic after a leash failure and discovered local recycling systems refused the material. He researched alternatives and 3D-printed a prototype, founding Swellcycle to produce surfboards from renewable materials. Traditional oil-based foams like polyurethane generate high carbon emissions and harm the environment, with a typical six-foot surfboard producing emissions comparable to a long-haul flight. Some newer foam alternatives reduce fossil fuel use but fragment into tiny plastic beads that threaten marine wildlife. Swellcycle aims to replace harmful materials and reduce the surf industry’s environmental footprint through design and manufacturing innovation.
Read at The Mercury News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]