emissions produced for someone to point out I ’ m wrong , but in doing so , I ’ ve probably done a little bit of good . Oh , and the ( e ) is equivalent . Someone could point out that the research is biased , that climate change is inevitable , and that the human race isn ’ t adding to it . Some cling to climate denial narratives spread by the fossil fuel lobby and long since debunked by hard , peer-reviewed science .
Although I think most of us agree that fossil fuels and certain production concerns are adding to the global CO2 ( e ) emissions .
How can we pledge to be better at this stuff ? I am not asking for all-out glueing ourselves to tankers and sitting in the road . I am simply asking how we can be better . Do we consider an impact assessment for the stuff we use ? Have you ever asked for an impact assessment from a company ?
TOOTEGA ’ S STEVE CHILDS
We all know of the refuse , reuse and recycle – more than likely , we have all been thinking of these things for decades – I remember at school in the early 90s , we spoke about all this . One obvious way to change our footprint is to recycle our boats – but this leaves us with some issues . I spoke to an industry insider , good egg and quiet revolutionary , Steve Childs , and asked the questions ; perhaps others would consider this an open invitation to publish how they are making better choices .
Darren : “ Is the recycled material as durable ?” Steve : “ In many cases , the answer is no , so the actual footprint increases per use .” Darren : “ That ’ s crazy , Steve ; this interests me because we think recycled is good . Does the production of the recycled material have a smaller footprint than the virgin material you were using ?” Steve : “ In many cases , the answer is , it was higher – in one case I know of , the cost of collecting and reprocessing made the footprint 6x higher than the total footprint of virgin material , and that ’ s including the entire footprint of fossil fuel extraction on the virgin material ... 80 % of the footprint of my product falls outside the material ; therefore I don ’ t have to move the durability by much to render using recycled materials much worse in the total life cycle of product .” Darren : “ Whoa , this is insane . Are we being a little greenwashed or not told the full truth ?” Steve : “ If boats were made with recycled material , this would be close to a 40 % reduction in durability – the footprint of the material would rise by about 15-20 % at the same time , AND production rejects would quadruple because of subtle differences batch to batch in the recycled materials properties – all put together , my effective footprint per use of my products would double !
“ Instead of using renewable energy , recycling all my waste into products where the compromised properties of the regrind do not matter and concentrating on making the longest lifespan product possible ! We also run production much slower than most people would do commercially to minimise scrap and wastage absolutely !”
Recycled plastic is not recyclable ; it is down cyclable . Making a plastic recyclable in any real sense will cause more emissions than the actual production of plastic in the first place , going by the information . This whole discourse is like driving a roundabout , not knowing which exit we need but knowing we cannot get back on the same road again . These small steps start something , the start of a more thoughtful process .
Perhaps we need to move away from plastic and back to the days of composite , where we can fix and repair our boats after they get damaged . We could keep patching up and changing the chop as needed . One boat that we care for . We become more grassroots ; we become more local if we are not expecting our boats to be shipped worldwide , from production to distribution to sales . How many modern plastic boats are made in third-party ovens , perhaps a continent away from the company that owns the design ?
If we used composite , we would limit the seal launches and avoid rocks , thus leaving fewer microplastics . I know some resins and materials are damaging – but in owning and fixing our boats as we did years ago , we become part of the cycle ; we are not avoiding it and making it someone else ’ s choice . It ’ s not about some oven and workers we have never met . It becomes more of a community , straight away more sustainable . Mega kayaks in the UK have started making a more eco-friendly boat using flax for most of the process rather than carbon - A ‘ Green build ’ spec . ( It ’ s as green as we can with current technology ). Built using a mix of Flax , UD flax , a Balsa core and a Biobased resin . There ’ s also some glass fibre and diolene in there . So , around 70 / 30 split in favour of environmentally green / sustainable materials
What uses more oil , heating the glass to spin fibre or planting , fertilising , watering , harvesting , processing and transporting that fibre ? Since flax cloth is made from the stem of linseed , it ’ s an extra byproduct of a crop already grown for bio-oil , feed meal or cotton - a simplistic answer .
• Carbon fibre uses very high heat to carbonise its long-string polymers from oil industry materials .
• So the answer is carbon is the loser in the scenario .
“ Big questions because the eco thing has been a personal issue for a long time . It ’ s not just the build material that bugs me but the waste involved in building a top-spec boat . The build of our eco-spec boat was based on the greenest materials we could find , and fortuitously these materials allowed vacuum infusion with minimal production waste . We ’ ve had a green spec on our build list for four years , and no one has taken it up ! However , now that the materials are more available and in line with glass and carbon costs , I decided to grab the bull by the horns and make this Kraken for myself . I ’ ll follow up by converting the Mega demo fleet to Eco spec over the next year because I feel it ’ s the correct way to go . However , I honestly have no idea if this is something that the buying public wants . The whole concept excites me , though .” Pete Holgate , Mega Kayaks .
With this open letter , I hope we can all ask honest questions . I don ’ t know if we have answers right now . For some in the industry , the profit outweighs investing in a greener way . I am not OK with this . We should all be asking the right questions . We should all be promoting a better way . We should all question our own choices and how we spend our money in the pursuit of leisure . We are blessed to have leisure time ; we should use our time wisely .
PADDLER 45