The organization Waste to Waves is wasting no time or materials to produce an eco-friendly product made from recycled plastic. They create boards from Styrofoam and yoga mats from wet suits. The Waste to Waves organization also set up and manages Styrofoam drop off sites. Surfers have been switching to the ECOBOARD  and have not regretted it. Surfers are winning competitions with this eco-friendly board, proving that just because a product is recycled it doesn’t mean it’s less quality. These boards are actually stronger and last longer than regular non recycled boards, which means less money in the long run. Waste to Waves is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, the co-founder Michel Stewart got the idea for this project after years of helping out beach cleanups and realizing how much trash we humans are producing. Stewart got together with Sustainable Surf’s other co-founder Kevin Whilden and started the Waste to Waves program in 2011 (Surfrider). In L.A alone “10 metric tons of plastic fragments—like grocery bags, straws and soda bottles—are carried into the Pacific Ocean every day“(ecowatch)  The U.S is in the top 20 countries who mismanage their trash/plastic which means that our waste is getting thrown into land dumps and the ocean, not only affecting the animals who live in these environments but also human beings.

Sources: calacademy.org ; huffingtonpost.com ; wastetowaves.org ; ecowatch.com