Riding A Wave: Surfboard Waste Turned Into Building Blocks For New Homes

As Hawaiʻi suffers a chronic housing crisis, inflation increases building costs and counties struggle to find space on the islands for new landfills, one Maui organization is looking to surfboards for a solution.

Architecture firm Hawaiʻi Off Grid is looking at the waste from surfboard building, to be exact, hoping to divert the polystyrene foam offcuts into cinder block-like forms for home construction. Known as “Surf Blocks,” the first home made entirely of the technology is almost complete, which Off Grid hopes will set a precedent for home building.

The state has weighed several options to try to resolve chronic housing issues while also contending with climate change, marked in recent years by destructive weather events including the 2023 Maui fires. Construction materials are among the pain points, given that they are predominantly produced elsewhere, shipped to Hawaiʻi and sold here at a premium.

By closing the loop on a source of waste, which can come from surfboards and other sources, Off Grid Principal Architect David Sellers hopes to address several issues at once.

Sellers came up with the idea about eight years ago when he was taking out the trash at his office in Maui’s Pauwela Cannery center. Twice a week, two dumpsters would brim with foam from the surfboard shapers that shared a space in the former cannery. That’s when he thought, “Wow, we could make houses out of this,” Sellers said.

Globally, construction companies integrate polystyrene foams — including Styrofoam products — into insulated composite concrete forms, which have been prized for their lighter weight, resilience and greater insulation properties. And those forms have typically been imported here from the mainland.

There is no shortage of polystyrene waste coming into Hawaiʻi as packaging from Amazon or household appliances, or in the form of surfboards, as evidenced by the dumpster loads Sellers saw headed to the landfill every week.

The surfboard companies were on board, so the architect began experimenting with the blocks, integrating them into homes his firm was building across Maui. Now, in Olowalu, the first home made exclusively from the blocks is nearing completion.

Making Better Building Blocks

Sellers thought the products would fill a niche on Maui, allowing people to have more environmentally friendly homes. The blocks not only close the loop on a waste stream, they retain heat better.

“Then the fire happened, and the other fires and the other hurricanes,” Sellers said. 

The pressures to find a more sustainable and readily available source of building materials became more real in the wake of the fires of August 2023, as Maui faced the realities of trying to rebuild more than 2,200 structures.

Many of those homes had been originally constructed with plantation-era characteristics, with thin wooden walls and virtually no protection from disasters, including fires.

Homes made with the blocks are fire-resistant, termite-proof and relatively simple to install. They are composed of two main ingredients: polystyrene foam, which accounts for about 85% of the mix, powdery Portland cement and some additives that help the forms stand up.

Sellers said that erecting a wall of the blocks requires about one-third the amount of concrete that would be needed for cinder blocks.

From Surf To Turf

Surfers know the plastics-heavy boards beneath their feet are not environmentally friendly.

Boards are typically fashioned from fiberglass and polystyrene foam, a balance of substances ensuring buoyancy and sturdiness that has been the industry standard for more than 60 years. Those boards are typically shaped from slabs of polystyrene, which leaves a significant volume of waste for the landfill. 

The industry as a whole has been taking steps to become greener, according to board shaper and world champion windsurfer Francisco Goya, whose company also works out of Pauwela Cannery.

Goya’s company has been manufacturing boards since the 1990s and currently shares a production space with other surf brands, such as KT Surfing, which shapes boards for big names in surfing, such as Kai Lenny.

“It’s everywhere in our manufacturing, in our thoughts, how to reduce the waste and how to get a greener material,” Goya said. “We’re doing our best but we do have a challenge.”

The industry has reduced the amount of waste by using better-tailored raw materials, but there is a long way to go, Goya said. While some shapers, such as Goya, actively recycle old boards and the boards have long lives with many owners, some companies have looked to alternative components, such as bioresins, flax fibers and algae foams.

Unfortunately, Goya said, a viable alternative to the status quo has yet to meet the mark. 

“It’s getting closer and closer. It’s just not at the point where it’s marketable,” Goya said. “But it won’t be long before we start seeing a renaissance of new materials.”  

A Steady Source of Material

Even if surfboards become climate-friendly, the amount of waste created by importing other goods provides lots of material for the blocks.

Surf Block Maui, a project of Hawaiʻi Off Grid, has already engaged some of the big box stores, such as Lowe’s, which gather loads of waste foams that accompany household appliances to the islands. Shipping material from new appliances for a new house typically fills six 42-gallon contractor bags with foam, according to Off Grid.

This could be helpful as counties continue to grapple with finding new dump sites, as their established facilities start to reach capacity. The Central Maui landfill, the largest in the county, takes in over 440 million pounds of waste every year. Meanwhile, on Oʻahu, annual construction and demolition waste accounts for about 17% of landfills — about 485 million pounds.

Polystyrene foams are big but light, so while diverting foam may not make a significant dent in landfill weight, it would help with volume, which Sellers said is an even more meaningful contribution to extending landfills’ lifespans.

“It’s just trash, so we throw it away. But because it’s so lightweight, we’re not able to accurately calculate how much we’re putting into the landfill,” Sellers said. “They’re not reaching their weight capacity, they’re reaching a volume capacity.”