“It’s stupid,” Rasta says. “It’s just surfing and we’re all just fortunate fools to even have time to go surfing.” Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Surfers, for all our big talk about how important the environment is, are decidedly bad for the planet. Our boards made of toxic materials that will be around long after we’re dead, coated in more toxic stuff. Our wetsuits from petroleum products and we have higher than average rates of travel, and yet, we still stand on soapboxes. But a big part of the issue is that there aren’t all that many options for the Average Joe that aren’t bad for the planet. In recent years, however, more and more options are showing up, and Dave Rastovich recently sat down to talk about on.
“It’s stupid,” Rasta says. “It’s just surfing and we’re all just fortunate fools to even have time to go surfing.”
Rastovich, as is the case with any dedicated surfer, goes through a lot of surfboards. Surfers on a professional level especially often ride surfboards that are more prone to breaking. Therein lies the inherent and often unavoidable hypocrisy: the most ardent environmentalist who surfs is likely struggling with a crisis of conscience.
“The tragedy of when you get a magic board; how everything in the world feels right when you have a magic board,” Rasta continues. “It’s just amazing. And then it breaks in six months or a year or two or three years, even… I think that tragedy of losing a magic board should be motivation enough, let alone the ecological and social ramifications of having these really toxic surfboards sucked into a throwaway culture of planned obsolesce — that corporate idea of “I want this to break in a few months so the customer comes back and gives me more money for another one” — that’s shit.”
