Turning Heart Break into Redemption

It happens. Skateboard long enough and sooner or later one breaks. Being 6’3 and 190 pounds and into all the flippity tricks I could manage this averaged about every three weeks to a month.

Even when I didn’t misstep and crack it in half sooner or later it would wear out and lose it’s pop.

Somehow this always managed to be late in the afternoon on a ninety degree day when I was already tired and frustrated that I couldn’t land some trick or another. Just what I needed.

The routine was always the same. Take off the trucks with the wheels and throw the rest into the skateboard graveyard atop the stage at Chaffey high school.

Now if I were the only one it wouldn’t make much of a difference but there are tens of millions of skaters world wide and if all of them adorn there local skate spot in the same way that’s a lot of wasted resources.

Skateboards start out as thin layers of wood such as maple and are coated with glue and stacked seven to eight high and are placed in a press to form the desired shape and let dry.

Although the basic concave has been formed they are still rectangular in shape and must be trimmed sanded and drilled for truck placement.

Then painted, clear coated and packaged for shipping.

In a factory where over 40,000 skateboards a month can get made. This creates a tremendous amount of waste.

And while factories in many places are able to use this to fire wood burning stoves for heat. The glue makes this impossible in the United States and most recyclers aren’t willing to accept this in bulk.

There is a solution however.

Individuals can peel the grip tape off and take there broken decks for recycling.

Since skateboards are very strong laminated wood there are also many other options for reclaiming the material.

Such as the myriad of items show in the title photo by japanese designer Harvest

Or even fashion potential. Such as this clutch by designer Beck(y). I’ve even cut the nose square and used them for wheel stops on a race car with no ebrake.

So as a creative medium theres a lot of potential and as a source for particle board, mulch or any number of things theres no point in simply adding them to the landfill.

Without this kind of thinking however it’s a moot point. So I have begun contacting skateboard companies directly inquiring about the possibility of adding the recycle logo into the graphics design.

Placed under where the trucks mount to the board it could be hidden easily and blended somewhat inconspicuously with the graphics or as a matter of statement in bold.

The return for this is positive image for these companies and will also drive customers to there websites in a quest to find out further information. A win-win.

The other main components also have similar options with the wheels being added to the plastic pile and with a vice and a sledgehammer even the steel axle can be removed from the aluminum components and both then recycled.

It’s likely that many of you that read this would simply argue the whole thing is a major drain on natural resources and the hooligans should switch to golf anyways.

But instead, take the time to think about how such a simple thing might introduce people from a very young age to the ideas of recycling and conservation and how you might challenge yourself and others to think about the things around them. And how they might be reclaimed for all our good.