They may be green, but do they truly make the grade?
From natural cleaning products to hemp clothing, the green revolution has transformed the contents of our kitchen cabinets and closets. Now, sporting and fitness goods manufacturers are taking the trend outdoors, marketing upscale products that boast a new sensitivity to the environment.
Just as hybrid cars win customers despite the higher prices they command, sporting products that claim to be green can give manufacturers a “marketing edge,” says Paul Schmitt, president of PS Stix, a premier manufacturer of skateboard decks.
Is this new spin on the green movement simply a marketing ploy or a reputable effort to improve the environmental impact of outdoor products? Can consumers be confident that these supposedly green products merit their price tags and perform as well or better than traditional goods?
We looked at some products and spoke to some users.
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Surfboards
* What’s new: The abrupt 2005 closing of Clark Foam, which supplied up to 90% of the market’s blanks (uncut and unshaped boards), roiled the surfing industry and caused surfboard prices to double; it also drew attention to problems with the materials used to make the blanks. Clark’s blanks were composed of TDI (toluene diisocyanate) and coated with polyester resins, both considered harmful to the environment and to workers who handled them, according to the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some manufacturers, including Patagonia, Surftech, Ice-Nine and Aviso, have since adopted epoxy resins, natural composites or blanks composed of less toxic MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate).
* A user’s view: Darryl Hatheway, co-founder of the Washington chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental protection group, swears by the greener products; he has eight Surftech boards that he brings to worldwide surf expeditions. “Normally your [polyester resin] board would be damaged before you got to the airport,” he says. Not so with his epoxy Surftech boards, which stand up to bangs and scrapes. Hatheway also says epoxy resin works well with blanks made of polystyrene, a foam that doesn’t absorb water. Although epoxy boards ($450 to $700) cost 10% to 20% more than polyester resin boards ($375 to $600), Hatheway says they last 10 times longer. They’re lighter, easier to maneuver and float well.
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Rubber balls
* What’s new: Most traditional high-end sports balls are made with a polyurethane or synthetic leather outer shell and a rubber air bladder. Aggressive harvesting of rubber can deplete forests.
Fair Trade Sports makes balls that have both an inner bladder and a coating over the synthetic leather made of FSC-certified rubber. FSC certification means the product is from a responsibly managed forest, as dictated by international rules. “Given that about 300 grams out of the typical 420-gram full-size soccer ball is rubber, it was the best place to start building eco-friendliness into the product,” says Scott James, founder of the Seattle-based company.
James says his company’s professional-quality soccer balls, volleyballs, futsal balls, rugby balls, footballs and soon basketballs are priced competitively with those from big-name companies; midrange balls cost about $30 to $60.
* A user’s view: Becky Bavinger, club organizer of D.C. Stop Modern Slavery Group, a local advocacy group, recently set up a soccer match with the recreational Washington Soccer Society; the two teams played with a Fair Trade Sports soccer ball. “We couldn’t tell the difference. . . . It played just as great with no change in texture or feel,” Bavinger says.
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Skateboards
* What’s new: Considering how popular skateboarding has become in the last 20 years -- 12 million kids skate in the U.S., more than those enrolled in Little League, says John Bernards, executive director of the International Assn. of Skateboard Companies -- and the fact that kids can be expected to break at least one board a year, the industry probably has sacrificed a lot of trees for the sport.
Manufacturers such as Comet, Habitat, Loaded Boards and Sector 9 have taken the lead in introducing eco-friendly boards. Habitat boards incorporate bamboo or hemp fiberglass, Loaded Boards use bamboo and Comet uses FSC-certified maple and water-based coatings.
Some manufacturers say the cost of FSC-certified wood or the special processing needed to work with bamboo is excessive. Also, Schmitt of PS Stix, whose company produces the bamboo and hemp fiberglass decks for Habitat, says that because the industry is dealing with a demographic of 10- to 15-year-olds who are spending their allowance on boards, increasing prices is not sound business practice.
Others disagree. “The performance is phenomenal. It’s a little pricier, but it blows the other materials away. . . . You can run over a [bamboo] board with a car and it probably won’t break,” says Don Tashman, founder of Loaded Boards.
* A user’s view: It can be hard to get old-timers off their traditional boards, but some longboarders who have tried green boards prefer them. Herndon, Va., resident Justin Metcalf races and rides to his classes at Virginia Tech on a $250 Loaded Boards Pintail bamboo board. “Because of the bamboo construction, the board is quite springy and flexible, yet at the same time is surprisingly strong,” he says.
Christopher Newport University freshman Brendan Redler is also a fan. “They’re lightweight, resilient and have some life to them,” he says. “I’d say that I prefer the ride of bamboo to wood almost hands down as a general longboard.”
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Bikes
* What’s new: For 20 years, Calfee Design has been building high-end racing bikes out of carbon fiber -- a strong but lightweight material used in everything from sports equipment to aircraft. But after seeing his dog try and fail to gnaw through a stalk of bamboo in 1996, Craig Calfee introduced a line of bike frames made out of bamboo and hemp as a publicity stunt.
Calfee describes bamboo as “tougher than carbon fiber in terms of impact resistance.” It’s less prone to fracturing than carbon fiber, and the bamboo bike is “about 1 pound heavier than carbon fiber,” Calfee says. Bamboo also absorbs road vibrations well, allowing cyclists to ride longer without tiring. (According to Steve Chang, in charge of Calfee sales and production, one customer rode 500 miles in one day on a Calfee bamboo bike.) Since the stunt, Calfee has produced about 100 bamboo frames, each starting at $2,695 -- a mid-level price for a Calfee product.
* A user’s view: Larry Black, founder of eco-friendly College Park, Md., Bicycles, received a bamboo bike from Calfee a year ago. He says, “Eyes closed, it’s hard to tell the difference between this and other bicycles. There’s a little bit of novelty involved . . . [but] it’s quite comfortable.”
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Snowboards
* What’s new: Anyone associated with winter sports is particularly aware of global warming’s potential impact. “The industry is dependent on snow, dependent on the natural surroundings for its success,” says Lisa Branner, who with her husband, Klemens, started Venture Snowboards eight years ago in Colorado. So it’s no wonder snowboards are going green. Companies such as Venture Snowboards and Arbor (which also constructs green skateboards) are using sustainably harvested wood, bamboo and organic cotton and hemp.
Officials at Arbor, which builds boards from bamboo and other sustainable harvested woods, and Venture Snowboards, which uses FSC-certified wood from Pennsylvania with a hemp and organic cotton top sheet, say they’re unwilling to sacrifice performance. If boards break or don’t perform well and “enter the waste stream that way, you’re not doing any good,” says Lisa Branner, whose boards start at $495.
Some companies, after testing these new materials, contend they may be even better than traditional components. For example, Arbor’s marketing manager, Jessica Ng, says bamboo is “lighter, more responsive and more durable” than wood, plus it offers “more pop . . . [or] liveliness to the board” when making jumps.
* A user’s view: According to Ryan Jeffries, inventory manager at East Coast Board Co. in Fairfax, Va., Arbor boards “are pretty stiff, but they’re good boards. . . . Out West, where the snow is deeper, they might be better.”
