An eco-friendly spin on skateboards
In Ithaca's Comet Skateboard factory, one board has a place of honor. It bears the images of a pair of slithering, one-eyed creatures, a character resembling a monkey with a huge head of hair—and the signature of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. The former presidential hopeful autographed the board in July, when she attended an environmental forum at Syracuse's City Hall, where Comet was showcased as a model company for environmental manufacturing. Clinton—who declined to take the board out for a spin—lauded the company for developing biodegradable skateboards using sustainable manufacturing processes.
Jason Salfi '92 co-founded Comet in an effort to decrease the skateboarding industry's impact on the environment. Most conventional boards are made of maple— and because a serious skater can wear out one in a matter of weeks, Salfi says, the industry is a major consumer of the slow-growing trees. Traditional epoxies used to glue the maple veneers together, as well as the paints used for decoration, can become toxic when boards are dumped in landfills. "It's ironic that we are creating toys for kids," Salfi says, "yet compromising their future."
Since its start in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998, Comet has been using water-based epoxies and paints, wood harvested using sustainable forestry practices, and solar power. In early 2007, the company began adding a bio-composite to its boards using technology based on the research of Cornell fiber science professor Anil Netravali. He co-founded e2e Materials, an Ithaca-based startup that designs biodegradable materials made from soy protein and plant fibers such as hemp and jute. "With green composites, you can compost the boards anywhere," says Netravali. "If you crush them up and put them in the grass, they will decompose into soil in six months."
According to skateboard reviewer Erik Basil, managing editor and product tester for the online magazine Silverfish Long-boarding, the switch to eco-friendly materials hasn't meant a compromise in quality—though he and some fellow reviewers have nicknamed Comet's products "granola boards" because of their environmental bent. "I asked if you could eat a spoonful of the stuff and wash it down with soy milk with no harmful effects," says Basil. "Jason replied to the effect that, were those my tastes, I certainly could."
— Liz DeLong