At the begining of the summer VISSLA kicked off an up-cycled surf craft contest, challenging board builders to make something surfable out of waste materials.

The entries were many and wide ranging, with finalists including a shortboard and trailer fashioned from a stand up paddle board, a board made entirely from discarded wooden pallets, a fly-screen single fin and another made entirely of cork.

On Saturday night, the finalists gathered together at The Ecology Centre in California to showcase their finished products and the winner was announced as Taylor Lane.

Here’s a look at his creation, a 5’4 twin fin, made up of a salvaged cigarette butt core, EPS rail cut-offs, fibreglass cut-offs, styrofoam fish coolers, found fabrics:

The sustainable surfboard industry receives constant derision (presumably from those happy to eventually watch the world burn) for their inability to make something which measures up in terms of cost and performance to a standard sled made from toxic-chems.

While performance was clearly not Taylor’s top priority, and his creation is much more a work of art with a message as it is a functional stick, the board does seem to go alright. It weighs a whopping 1.2 stone (7.7kg), reportedly making it devilishly difficult to turn, but it does have some performance pluses.

“I was happy to discover that while it was nearly impossible to turn, the Roach Tail had incredible speed through flat sections.” reports Stab’s Micheal Ciaramella, who took it out for a spin the morning after it won the comp.

Will we be seeing the line up flooded with these boards sometime soon? Probably not, but will it make you think twice before you flick your fag butt into the sand after your morning surf check? Let’s hope so.