WORDS:
DARREN CLARKSON

Darren’s bio
Darren is an adventurer whose personal philosophy asks what we can learn when we put ourselves in a place of adventure. Over the last 20+ years Darren has explored some of the worlds most challenging rivers. He specialises in running trips across the Himalaya in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Tibet. To join him for expeditions visit www.purelandexpeditions.com

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Our pledge an open letter

I do not need another piece of plastic in my garage

Every weekend hundreds, if not thousands, of kayakers drive the highways and byways in the UK and around the world, chasing the rain as it cascades as rivers and flows down the mountains and the valley below. Our sport is heavily petroleum-based and intrinsically linked to the fossil fuel industry.

We think we are eco-warriors, a stop the dam campaign, a local river clean up. That’s not enough, is it? But it sure is a start. It sure is a way for action. We can make each small step towards a better adventure count. We can all make choices; we can all mitigate; we can all plan for a more sustainable future. These are just some avenues to consider, just some ways we can all make a personal pledge going forward.

“As kayakers, canoeists, and river lovers, we are gifted a privileged perspective on our waterways, witnessing the wonders they offer first-hand, often in ways the bank-bound can’t even dream of. But with that privilege comes duty. As well as seeing the beauty, we are first on the scene to see the threats our free-flowing rivers are under. From an individual’s trash to water companies using rivers as sewers, from agricultural run off to multinationals damming the flow in the pursuit of profit, we are uniquely placed to see the threats and their effects on the places we love. These threats have solutions, from grabbing that plastic bottle floating in the eddy to engaging our political figures in representing our wild places. Whatever your waterway, and whatever your sport, if you play, you must protect.”
Tom Laws – https://saveourrivers.org

Perhaps we need to do more to protect our future. Perhaps, just perhaps, we can look at our footprint (let’s use that word as we seem to understand it) and how our participation impacts our environment. Our C02(e) footprint is massive and getting bigger and bigger. I could write this article about the percentage and the numbers, but those that care will already know this or ask the right questions to the industry, and those in denial will skip past it anyway.

Can we wean ourselves off the want to get new gear? Can we all make better choices in how we interact with the environment around us? Can we make better choices in how we participate in our sport? We are not separate from it; we are part of it. I know I have taken flights around the globe. I know I accepted new boats and kit before my old stuff wore out when my sponsor sent me the latest colours/model. I’ve refused stuff over the last few years, refused flights, refused new. It’s a conscious choice that suits me – but may not suit others.

“For sure, the paddlesport industry’s existence creates pollution; the big question is how can we reduce it as much as possible? Modern boat-making facilities are more efficient than older factories, this is a good step forward, but the heaviest pollution comes from transport; how do paddlers get to the river? How often do they drive, and how far? This situation has got worse, not better; how many paddlers take their car to the river and do not share lifts or, like in the old days, use a minibus and trailer to get everyone to the river? Recently we saw eight paddlers from the same club arrive at a river two hours’ drive away from their home town; they arrived in eight cars. This is the easiest way we can cut carbon output right now.

“Also, it’s important to make people aware of the situation regarding pollution and environmental damage; this is why Spade Kayaks are a member of the “1% for the planet” movement. It means we are helping fund green projects and creating awareness with our customers that our sport creates an environmental impact.

“Raising awareness, making boats efficiently and improving how we get to the river is key to doing what we can as an industry.”
Hans Mayer – Spade Kayaks

If we are only to look at our boats, how often do people buy new plastic kayaks to make themselves feel better, without the skills making them better? Does it make a difference to our skills and mostly our enjoyment if we paddle a kayak that is five or ten years old? One we buy used? Although I know some plastic becomes brittle with age – perhaps the industry can rectify this. Like we all are, I am aware that we have advancements in outfitting and cockpit sizes, with safety year in and year out – most of these are minor. It’s the trends that change. We drive our vehicles we burn fossil fuels.

Do people run or cycle the shuttle?

OK, I could be wrong about this – I’m OK to preach about the destruction of our planet in the CO2(e) emissions produced for someone to point out I’m wrong, but in doing so, I’ve probably done a little bit of good. Oh, and the (e) is equivalent. Someone could point out that the research is biased, that climate change is inevitable, and that the human race isn’t adding to it. Some cling to climate denial narratives spread by the fossil fuel lobby and long since debunked by hard, peer-reviewed science.

Although I think most of us agree that fossil fuels and certain production concerns are adding to the global CO2(e) emissions.

How can we pledge to be better at this stuff? I am not asking for all-out glueing ourselves to tankers and sitting in the road. I am simply asking how we can be better. Do we consider an impact assessment for the stuff we use? Have you ever asked for an impact assessment from a company?

Tootega’s Steve Childs

We all know of the refuse, reuse and recycle – more than likely, we have all been thinking of these things for decades – I remember at school in the early 90s, we spoke about all this. One obvious way to change our footprint is to recycle our boats – but this leaves us with some issues. I spoke to an industry insider, good egg and quiet revolutionary, Steve Childs, and asked the questions; perhaps others would consider this an open invitation to publish how they are making better choices.

Darren: “Is the recycled material as durable?”

Steve: “In many cases, the answer is no, so the actual footprint increases per use.”

Darren: “That’s crazy, Steve; this interests me because we think recycled is good. Does the production of the recycled material have a smaller footprint than the virgin material you were using?”

Steve: “In many cases, the answer is, it was higher – in one case I know of, the cost of collecting and reprocessing made the footprint 6x higher than the total footprint of virgin material, and that’s including the entire footprint of fossil fuel extraction on the virgin material… 80% of the footprint of my product falls outside the material; therefore I don’t have to move the durability by much to render using recycled materials much worse in the total life cycle of product.”

Darren: “Whoa, this is insane. Are we being a little greenwashed or not told the full truth?”

Steve: “If boats were made with recycled material, this would be close to a 40% reduction in durability – the footprint of the material would rise by about 15-20% at the same time, AND production rejects would quadruple because of subtle differences batch to batch in the recycled materials properties – all put together, my effective footprint per use of my products would double!

“Instead of using renewable energy, recycling all my waste into products where the compromised properties of the regrind do not matter and concentrating on making the longest lifespan product possible! We also run production much slower than most people would do commercially to minimise scrap and wastage absolutely!”

Recycled plastic is not recyclable; it is down cyclable. Making a plastic recyclable in any real sense will cause more emissions than the actual production of plastic in the first place, going by the information. This whole discourse is like driving a roundabout, not knowing which exit we need but knowing we cannot get back on the same road again. These small steps start something, the start of a more thoughtful process.

Perhaps we need to move away from plastic and back to the days of composite, where we can fix and repair our boats after they get damaged. We could keep patching up and changing the chop as needed. One boat that we care for. We become more grassroots; we become more local if we are not expecting our boats to be shipped worldwide, from production to distribution to sales. How many modern plastic boats are made in third-party ovens, perhaps a continent away from the company that owns the design?

If we used composite, we would limit the seal launches and avoid rocks, thus leaving fewer microplastics. I know some resins and materials are damaging – but in owning and fixing our boats as we did years ago, we become part of the cycle; we are not avoiding it and making it someone else’s choice. It’s not about some oven and workers we have never met. It becomes more of a community, straight away more sustainable. Mega kayaks in the UK have started making a more eco-friendly boat using flax for most of the process rather than carbon – A ‘Green build’ spec. (It’s as green as we can with current technology ). Built using a mix of Flax, UD flax, a Balsa core and a Bio-based resin. There’s also some glass fibre and diolene in there. So, around 70/30 split in favour of environmentally green/sustainable materials

What uses more oil, heating the glass to spin fibre or planting, fertilising, watering, harvesting, processing and transporting that fibre? Since flax cloth is made from the stem of linseed, it’s an extra byproduct of a crop already grown for bio-oil, feed meal or cotton – a simplistic answer.

• Carbon fibre uses very high heat to carbonise its long-string polymers from oil industry materials.
• So the answer is carbon is the loser in the scenario.

“Big questions because the eco thing has been a personal issue for a long time. It’s not just the build material that bugs me but the waste involved in building a top-spec boat. The build of our eco-spec boat was based on the greenest materials we could find, and fortuitously these materials allowed vacuum infusion with minimal production waste. We’ve had a green spec on our build list for four years, and no one has taken it up! However, now that the materials are more available and in line with glass and carbon costs, I decided to grab the bull by the horns and make this Kraken for myself. I’ll follow up by converting the Mega demo fleet to Eco spec over the next year because I feel it’s the correct way to go. However, I honestly have no idea if this is something that the buying public wants. The whole concept excites me, though.”
Pete Holgate, Mega Kayaks.

With this open letter, I hope we can all ask honest questions. I don’t know if we have answers right now. For some in the industry, the profit outweighs investing in a greener way. I am not OK with this. We should all be asking the right questions. We should all be promoting a better way. We should all question our own choices and how we spend our money in the pursuit of leisure. We are blessed to have leisure time; we should use our time wisely.

Let me know your thoughts – Darren Clarkson.

What will be your pledge?

How will you travel for adventure?

How will you buy?

How will you promote a greener message?

We cannot roll over and hide from this, we are all responsible, and if I had kids, I’d love for them to have a future.