Environment
What are you bringing to the Ocean?
540,000 tons of Toxic surfboard wax is dumped into the Ocean every year!..
Of the six billion bars of surf wax purchased annually worldwide, most contain a blend of ingredients that are non-biodegradable, non-sustainable, non-renewable, synthetic, toxic or genetically modified.
A typical block of surfboard wax might contain a mix of the following:
- paraffin wax (petrochemical by-product)
- petroleum jelly (petrochemical by-product)
- microcrystalline wax (petrochemical by-product)
- vistanex (petrochemical by-product)
- synthetic glues and resins
- synthetic dyes and fragrances
There are 23,000,000 surfers globally and 6,000,000,000 (Six Billion) bars of surf wax purchased annually worldwide, most contain a blend of ingredients that are non-biodegradable, non-sustainable, non-renewable, synthetic, toxic or genetically modified.
Using surfboard wax you're killing the environment...
Let's start off with the basics: surfboard wax. Similar to sunscreen, board wax can contain ocean harming and human health-harming synthetic ingredients such a petroleum based wax or synthetic fragrance.
Many popular waxes contain petrochemical additives such as paraffins that pollute the ocean. In fact, petrochemicals are in 95 percent of surf wax found on the market today. This petroleum-based wax will eventually fall off a surfboard, affecting our beaches, our delicate ecosystems and reefs. Paraffin wax is obtained when crude oil is separated into its individual components.
Source: www.frontiersin.org
The wax itself is a petrochemical which requires hydrocarbon energy to transport and refine the wax from crude oil. Paraffin starts off as a grayish-black sludge that may have seen oozing out of the backside of petroleum refineries. This substance is then bleached with 100 percent strength bleach, creating dioxins (which are toxic). For those who use bleach in the laundry, only 10 percent is used in this case – so you can imagine the strength of 100. The white ooze created from this is then processed into solid paraffin using various solidifying chemicals, such as acrolyn, which is a known carcinogen. As if this process isn't bad enough, it uses a large amount of non-renewable energy as well.
Soy is another primary ingredient found in surf wax. While soy seems better and more natural because it's a plant, soy is a monoculture that is mass produced for use in the agricultural industry, and it is often genetically engineered. Genetically modified soy is grown with petrochemical fertilizers, petrochemical herbicides, and petrochemical pesticides. This farming method puts biodiversity highly at risk, especially in South America, where the area of soy cultivated for the production of animal feed and other products is about the size of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France combined.
That's not where the impact ends, however. Soybean oil is converted to wax through hydrogenation, where hydrogen gas is catalytically combined with the oil. Hydrogen gas is produced industrially through a process called methane steam reforming, where water and a natural gas (a petrochemical) are broken up into carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas. This means that even if the soybeans were grown, transported and processed into oil without any petrochemicals, the wax making process requires hydrogen (made from petrochemicals) added to it. Because the majority of brands do not specify where the soy is sourced from, the best option is to find certified organic surf wax to avoid most of the damage associated with soy.
*Source: www.onegreenplanet.org