Eco friendly packaging used to ship stand up paddle boards
SUP companies are getting on the 'shrooms...
The carbon designer stand up paddle board made headlines last year when Laird Hamilton began promoting the boards as something he'd helped design in conjunction with Puma. Painted in a stunning red and naked carbon colour scheme, the Puma boards were based on their maxi yacht Mar Mostro's look, and shape wise, the hull was incredibly similar. Check out the news article from last year here to read more about the boards.
Back to the packaging though, and an American company Ecovative have moulded some mushroom roots around the stand up paddle board and called it EcoCradle. Slightly more complicated than it sounds, the new technology will become mainstream in the future when other companies catch on the fact that petroleum based foams aren't needed to protect their boards in transit.
The EcoCradle uses a thing called mycelium which grows around agricultural byproducts like seed husks or plant stalks to any shape. Within five to seven days, in the dark, with no watering, and no petrochemical inputs, the mycelium envelops the byproducts, binding them into a strong packaging part. By growing these things in a mould, the company can produce an eco friendly packaging alternative.
Antonio Bertone, CMO for PUMA is as stoked as a CMO could possible be about the new packaging, saying: “PUMA has a mission to become the most sustainable sport lifestyle company in the world, and partnering with a company like Ecovative brings us one step closer to this goal. When we developed the board, not only did we set out to create a one-of-a-kind paddleboard from a performance point of view, we also wanted to be mindful of the environmental impact.”
Will this catch on with the rest of the SUP manufacturers, in particular the Cobra factory in Thailand. This super factory produces more than half of the worlds SUP's and are well known for wrapping each board in more than 50m of plastic, plus foam packing and a huge cardboard box. Check out the full view of how these boards are being shipped, and if this is good enough for a $6500 SUP board, it's surely good enough for the rest of them...
Read more about the packaging here.
Fremantle, WA
