We didn’t do it because we want it, we did it because we need it! A group of people committed to the environment. We did not invent recycling of boards, but we want to make it happen on a grander scale.
We Just Wanted To Surf
The year was 1984. In a small seaside town in South America, a group of boys played on the beach, trying to catch waves with rough pieces of polystyrene.
They had heard about something called surfing. Soon enough, they were gluing the pieces together, grinding them into shape, and laminating
Them with shirt fabric and polyester resin used to repair boats to make their first surfboards. About
About two years later, when the eldest of the boys was old enough to get a job, he went and bought himself a “real” surfboard.
The first the gang had ever seen. The well-used 7’2” Hawaiian surfboard was ridden for years, worn ragged, peeled, reshaped, and brought back to life—several times.
The same process was applied to other boards which had been discarded by less resourceful surfers.
SINCE 2000 IN COSTA RICA
Twenty years later one of the boys, Matos, relocated to Costa Rica, opened a surf shop, and started once more the old process by shaping a surfboard out of a broken longboard. Matos’s later collaboration with Californian Shaper Bryan Honeycutt and world famous glassier Paul from Ghetto House, almost by chance, kickstarted the SURFCYLED project.
The first board produced was a 5’0 x 20 1⁄2 x 2 1⁄4 that was a resounding success with the friends who tested it. By 2014, when shaper Gaston Rodriguez happened to be visiting Matos in Costa Rica, things really started moving. Matos drew an outline on the reclaimed foam of another broken longboard, and Gaston turned into a board. It was to be a modern 4’6 x 20 1/2 x 2 1/2 twin-fin egg, with art by Matos and glass by All Ocean, which let many speechless as they saw it fly over impossible sections. Gaston went back home, but kept in touch, sending ideas about new materials and techniques. In 2015 Matos got in touch with shaper Carlo Salustri, who dived into the project wholeheartedly. When artist and graphic designer Gineth Miranda joined in, the team was complete.
Today new shapers and factories have joined the project, allowing our surfboards to evolve in new, greener and exciting ways.
The production of biodegradable foams in Costa Rica, and the new techniques and materials that have been developed in recent years have given SURFCYCLED the possibility to keep evolving in the production of surfboards and accessories that are friendlier to the environment, giving us a chance to make the world at least a little bit cleaner.