What is a Sustainable Paddle Board?

What is a Sustainable Paddle Board?

A sustainable paddle board is made using materials that are renewable or won’t be permanently depleted, and built using manufacturing techniques that do little damage to the environment. Just because you say that something is sustainable doesn’t mean that it is. Unfortunately, the word “Sustainable” has been developed into marketing jingo and many brands or products call themselves sustainable when it isn’t actually true.
 
“SUSTAINABLE” DEFINED
The adjective “sustainable” has several definitions, however, we will only examine the ones closest to the manufacturing of products.
Sustainable:

• of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged – Merriam-Webster
• pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse – Dictionary.com
• causing, or made in a way that causes, little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time – Cambridge Dictionary

The common theme of these definitions is production by using resources and techniques that allow for reuse and do little or no damage to the environment.

The Concept of “Sustainability” Applied to Manufacturing
To build a sustainable product, it must be made using resources that aren’t permanently depleted and using technology that allows manufacturing to build products with as little damage to the environment as possible.

There is more to building a sustainable product then joining a few environmental organizations and planting some trees. A lot of thought and effort has to go into building a sustainable product.

To build a sustainable product, the following factors need to be taken into account

• Energy used to make the product
• Materials used to make the product
• Techniques used to make the product
• Disposal of manufacturing waste product
• Packaging of the product
  

What Makes a Paddle Board Sustainable?
A sustainable paddle board is made using renewable materials that aren’t permanently depleted, and built using paddle board technology that enables manufacturing to minimize the damage to the environment.

For shoppers interested in purchasing a sustainable paddle board, they need to examine the factors that go into a products manufacturing.

A sustainable paddle board will be built with renewable energy. If the factory is powered by coal, then the product isn’t very sustainable. Look for factories that are powered with green renewable energy like hydroelectric, solar, wind or geothermal.

Sustainable paddle boards are built using materials that are renewable and aren’t easily depleted. Look for materials like wood or bamboo. Bamboo is an excellent choice for sustainable products because it can be harvested more regularly than wood, and when it’s cut, that action actually spurs the bamboo plant to spread and grow even more. 

​Other building materials that are factors of sustainable paddle boards are the board’s core and the materials and resins that are applied over the core. The best paddle boards are made with layers of carbon fiber, or fiberglass and bamboo. They are held together by epoxy resins. Sustainable paddle boards use plant-based resins for their epoxy. Cores will also be made with recycled materials and be recyclable.

A Sustainable Paddle Board - Wappa Bliss

Paddle board technology plays a large role in a board being sustainable. Cores should be precision formed. This eliminates waste in core shaping since the cores are cut perfectly the first time. Sustainable paddle boards will be built using manufacturing techniques like sandwich construction and vacuum bagging. These methods reduce the amount of epoxy required to make a board strong.

A part of a sustainable product is it’s packaging. If you can’t easily recycle the products packaging, then the product isn’t as sustainable as it could be. If packaging can’t be recycled, then environmental damage has been done.
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When shopping for sustainable paddle board, it’s important to remember the definitions of “sustainable” and how that concept relates to manufacturing. With that thought in mind, it will be easier to determined which products are sustainable and which one are just making claims. Checking into key factors such as the energy used in the manufacturing process, the materials used to build the paddle board, and how it was built will enable the smart shopper to look past the hype and find the real sustainable paddle boards.