Jack Johnson is such rad human, eh? He’s so damn at ease with himself, just one reason he’s the perfect ambassador for our planet. Then there’s the fact he’s an icon in the surfing world, and nearly one in the world of music – which creates a broad reach, making it much easier for him to convey his message of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” (the Curious George soundtrack is vastly underrated, BTW).
Jack met the boys from the Cigarette Surfboard project, who we hosted at our EVOLVE Summit recently in Los Angeles (below). Taylor Lane and Ben Judkins turned one of the most disgusting aspects of humanity into something beautiful: a fish made from recycled Marko Foam and yes, cigarettes. Four-thousand of them found on California beaches. They got in touch with Jack to take it for a ride – which, as you can see, he did so in enviable fashion on the North Shore.
Cigarette butts are just one of the many facets of human life that are clogging the hell out of our oceans, which definitely needs to change. “It’s something from our past that kinda seems badass,” Jack says, taking an imaginary pull on an imaginary butt before throwing it over his shoulder. “But culture changes and hopefully this is just thought of as being super lame now. You see somebody do that and it’s the opposite of what it used to be in the films when it was in black and white and it was the cool character. Hopefully, that’s the villain now.”
The cigarette surfboard may not change the problem on its own. But symbolically, it’s a way to rally surfers and lovers of the sea to make a change. “There are a lot of threats beyond single-use plastic that are threatening our oceans,” said filmmaker Ben Judkins. “The best thing you can do is to get involved in some way. The best way is to (just) start.”
