Meeting with Notox: ecological and Made in France surfboards

We met the Notox team, the brand of eco-logical surfboards made in France. Their commitments and values ​​around eco-responsibility and performance immediately echoed at Möbius.

Discover their history and their vision of eco-design.

 What is the genesis of Notox?

The story of NOTOX began in a high-tech company, we were engineers (we had nothing to do with the surfing world at the base except its practice). One of our colleagues, an amateur shaper for fifteen years, tells us that one of the largest manufacturers of raw materials for the production of surfboards had just closed its doors in the USA for environmental and health reasons (its employees contracted diseases). We have begun to observe the industry's reaction to this event. We realized that the activity was simply fragmented and completely disseminated to places, where obviously these problems were much less troublesome (Brazil, Thailand, China, South Africa etc.).

There was a huge gap between the image conveyed by sliding sports , through a whole economic/industrial activity (accessories, textiles, etc.) and the surfboard, the emblem of this activity (otherwise the surfing would not exist). We immediately said to ourselves that this object had to benefit from something to bring the image back into harmony.

We had the opportunity to visit a production workshop in Anglet. We discovered quite incredible and unfortunately very common production conditions there. The workshop was more like a small garage, very poorly equipped, overloaded with dust, with unbearable smells of solvents, acetones, resins and with poorly equipped craftsmen, lacking means. In the lamination room, we were shocked to see boards from very well-known and prestigious brands that benefited from these outsourcing services despite respecting the craftsmen's health and environmental impact. There really was something to do.

As a result, we all quit our jobs and created NOTOX; not without difficulty because we divided our salaries by 3 (which motivated us more to see the project succeed). We first focused on issues related to the health of those who make the boards and we built "the lab": a fully equipped workspace respecting health and safety and waste disposal standards. To achieve this result that meets our expectations (but nevertheless very expensive) we worked in collaboration with occupational medicine, waste management unions, etc...

Secondly, we worked on the product itself, the surfboard , so that it would be the most "eco-logical", and that it correspond to the performance standards of traditional surfboards, if it is not even more. We studied and tested different materials and different techniques until we arrived at a surfboard that met our initial objectives. Concretely, we have gone from a traditional board which for 3kg of material generates 5kg of toxic and non-recyclable materials to a 3kg board which generates 1kg of toxic and non-recyclable materials. And that's how the adventure began!

What are your values?

Our key words are: environmental and ethical respect - innovation - pleasure and performance.

Notox was built on the values ​​of innovation serving the protection of the environment and the health of those who manufacture the boards. We want our boards to perform, because every surfer demands to get the most out of their sessions. But our requirement in terms of eco-responsibility and performance does not take away the pleasure: surfing is above all fun; and that's what we want to share!

 

If you had to describe Notox and its products in one sentence?

Allow a sport practice respectful of people and the environment by innovating on new processes and manufacturing materials not explored to date: we manufacture eco-responsible surfboards with a unique design !

Why such a wide choice of materials?

Each material has its own technical properties. So the use of each material in our constructions finds its legitimacy in the attributes it brings in terms of performance and eco-responsibility. This is our prism! By composing with different relevant materials, we can offer different technologies , each with its own advantages.

Are your boards made in France?

All our boards are made in France , and more precisely in Anglet in our lab/workshop. We also source the materials we use in the manufacture of our boards as closely as possible. For most of them they are also Made in France! The cork comes from the Landes, the flax comes from the north of France, the resin from Brittany, etc...

How do you manage the end of life of your products?

For a surfboard, we mainly speak of end of life when the board is broken in two (and therefore difficult to repair) or less often when the board is very old (+30 years) and damaged and which no longer finds a buyer. Depending on the state of the board, several scenarios are possible:

- If the board is not "recoverable", its end of life is dealt with directly with Ecologic, an eco-organization approved by the state (non-profit) responsible for collecting, cleaning up and recovering the equipment of the ASL sector (Sports and Leisure Articles among others) in the adapted circuit. You should know that it is legally the responsibility of the manufacturer to deal with the end of life of the equipment it produces.

- We can offer some of these boards to associations in need who take care of giving them a second life around a new project (like reconditioning them and then sending them to countries where children do not have access to decent material for surfing)

- For boards made with the KORKO construction ( https://notoxsurf.com/pages/technologies ) we can offer a reconditioning of the board so that the customer leaves with a board almost "like new". The cork sheet is replaced by a new one and an engraving is redone; a bit like the molting of a snake!

The recyclability of surfboards unfortunately remains an unresolved issue to this day, even with us. The reason stems from the fact that the manufacture of surfboards incorporates a composite (resin + fiber) which somehow "stains" the core made of polystyrene (in our case polystyrene apart from recycled) or polyurethane foams. It is important to be transparent for us on this point and not to promise things that are not feasible on an industrial or even artisanal scale. Nevertheless, this is a central point for us and we are working on this issue.

How is Notox different from other market players?

On the French market, we are in a way the first to have offered this type of offer in our sector (eco-responsible and high-performance surfboards). At the beginning (and even still today) we are considered a bit like a "UFO". We differentiate ourselves mainly by the materials we use in our boards, but also by our philosophy: we want to be close to our customers and transparent.

What is the project / product you are most proud of?

Lately, we are particularly proud of our new construction integrating upcycled carbon from Airbus. We have signed an agreement to recover carbon fabrics destined for landfill and upcycle them into R-CARBON surfboards! We get very light and resistant boards, with a pretty hot look. We tell you more here: https://notoxsurf.com/blogs/infos/r-carbon-des-planches-de-surf-ecologiques-en-carbone

We also recently designed a cruiser skateboard in partnership with Rekiem, a historical skateboard manufacturer (and neighbour) in the French industry. If you want to take a look at it, it's right here: https://notoxsurf.com/products/skateboard-cruiser-quartz

How do you see the future of Notox?

We hope to be able to continue our momentum! Continue to innovate in order to offer new products that our customers will find relevant and fun, while minimizing our environmental impact. From an internal point of view, we want to follow our progress while remaining a company with a healthy and family atmosphere, where everyone can express themselves without pressure.