than a decade, but this is my first day on the water for over three years. new year's day 2020 and the fin of my board went into my face. i was left with 16 stitches, and it has taken me this long to start trying to get over my fear. today i've come to the calmer waters of an inland surf lake near bristol to try and start getting back my love of surfing. as a journalist covering the environment, time away has made me question a lot about the sport, including its impact on the planet. so, um, some hairy moments, a lot of boards flying around and i was quite worried, but i'm going to get back into surfing, get back on my board and i will do it better this time, try and be sustainable and green, and see what i can find out. because all of this is a world away from surfing's origins. riding waves was once a sacred practice. in ancient hawaii it was a way for men and women to praise the ocean gods. surfing struggled through colonisation, but by the 1920s the so—called king of surfing, duke kahanamoku, was spreading his love of the surf abroad. even the future king edward tried it out on a visit to hawaii. it took off around the world, including here in the uk. in the 19505 the wooden boards of the hawaiians gave way to modern materials. reporter: blocks of stiff i polyurethane foam, and over a layer of fibreglass there must be several coats of chemical resin. the surfers were now kept warm by suits of neoprene. and what was the source of most of these new products? oil — an industry producing greenhouse gases, toxic emissions and waste products that take years to break down. and today, just look at how many people are riding the waves — 35 million and rising. so what can i do to be a greener surfer when i do finally get back up on those waves? i have come to fistral beach near newquay to meet an expert who should be able to set me on the right course. dr borne! hello. hi, nice to meet you. dr greg borne is a keen surfer and has been studying the environmental impact of the sport for more than a decade. i am getting back into surfing and i am trying to do it more sustainably. what do i need to think of most? where you travel to surf. how you get there. what wetsuit you use. is your board a mass produced internationally shipped product? surfing has an enormous environmental impact. so we have to think very carefully about the choices we make when we decide to go surfing and jump in the sea. this is a lifestyle industry as much as a sport. one based around the latest fashion, luxury goods, and travel. a surfer�*s carbon footprint can be around 50% bigger than the average person's. let's go to hawaii, let's go to the maldives, let's go and find that perfect wave. surfing sells everything from clothing to right now, watches with some of the most prominent surfers in the world modelling them. everyone wants to be part of that surfing culture, wants to be part of that dream that's being sold by the corporations. that's a dream some top surfers are living for real. this is lucy campbell. a uk champion surfer, she is preparing for next year's olympic games. she has to travel the world for competition and training. today, i'm meeting her much closer to home, on the north devon coast. and i'm hoping to get a tip or two. with surfing there's so much that's out of your control and so it's just focusing on the things that you can control yourself. it's like the conditions when my board went in my face. i'll give it a little go today, just a little go. yeah, let'sjust have a splash around. here we go — first time in the sea with a surfboard since that accident. so not bad for a first try — but clearly, lucy is in a different league. being a force of nature is about getting involved. at the top of her sport, lucy has been courted by major multinationals to be the face of their brands across the globe. but she does want to make a difference. i offset all of my carbon, but i do know that that is sort ofjust putting a plaster over the wound. i really try to be selected with the brands i work with, i try to make sure they are brands that have good ethoses and are trying to be more sustainable and supporting that. it is often hard to turn down a big pay cheque! laughs. if they're a brand that isn't sustainable, but it is more worthwhile in the long run. you have done that? really? 100%. from a company you feel hasn't fulfilled your... yeah, just fast fashion or things that don't align with what i believe in, really. there is definitely examples of how those brands can be more sustainable, and how they can have less impact on the environment, and i think they need to take the onus and make that difference. because one of her true passions is to inspire the next generation. you do want to encourage people to get outdoors but at the same time, at what cost to the planet? wherever you choose to surf, you still need all the right kit, and that comes with its own environmental baggage. paul blacker is one of the uk's top board shapers. he's been cutting, sanding and finishing boards by hand for more than 35 years. machine buzzes. in that time, he estimates he has crafted around 5,000 boards. i'll take you down to where the process all starts now. and that is in the shaping room. making them by hand doesn't mean the materials he has to work with are any better for the environment. so what is this made of? this is the polyurethane foam that is made from. to get it smooth like that, it starts off as a core so we cut around the outside, and then with the planer... machine buzzes. oh, my god, it's right in my eyes... if it gets in your eyes, it's really bad. and you can see all the dust. and that's polyurethane, it's not a great material in terms of... no, it's all petrochemical. everything comes from the petrochemical industry these days, everything. and that's an industry with a serious environmental impact — from the hazardous waste it can produce to the huge amounts of energy it relies on. in fact, every surfboard manufactured is said to create as much as the equivalent of 250kg of carbon dioxide. and it's notjust the foam of the boards that is a problem — it's also all the chemicals used to strengthen and finish them. that's extremely corrosive. what's that made out of? that's really bad, that will mess your lungs up. is that toxic? not now. using these chemicals has taken its toll on blacker. this is probably one of the most toxic things and making boards is the spraying, because you are using either isocyanates or you are using the cellulose, and cellulose isn't very good for your lungs or your skin or anything like that. you've got to have proper fume filter mask on, you've got to have that. isocyanates will mess your eyes up as well. so probably a bit of my vision now is coming over 35, 36 years of using isocyanates. then there is the industry's waste. it will be landfill at the end of the day? it'll be landfill. we are so far advanced in certain things and so far behind another ways. the worst thing at the moment is the little boogie boards, the cheap ones that break. there are hundreds of them around. they all end up in landfill. that is the sad thing — if you want to make something, make it last. and this is where much of that giant wave of surf waste comes from — beginner's boards thrown away after a day at the beach. some beaches have these recycling bins, have a look at this one. someone�*s just put this in here. this one, brand—new, someone has dumped it after their holiday. this looks like it was practically new, but snapped. and this is just the very tip of the waste iceberg. these are boards collected onjust a handful of beaches in cornwall. this is quite typical, really. neil hembrow, 0cean recovery project manager for keep britain tidy, was out on the beaches of cornwall during the heatwave last summer looking for boards that could be recycled. that one has completely had it. probably this board was made over the other side of the world a few months ago, and it has been on a container ship for a month, it has then been driven from a port on a lorry to a distribution point, it's then gone on a van to a shop, and it has been used in the sea for a matter of hours before it snapped and ended up as waste. it's really disheartening to see this amount of waste come forward. if it wasn't for us collecting them, they would go to landfill, or they would go to incineration. instead, they'll be turned into packaging and insulation. other ways are being found to fight this type of waste. resorts across the uk are banning their sale. and new borrow board schemes are being set up that hire out longer lasting ones, like here at bude sea pool. thank you for helping keep the environment free from cheap, snappy body boards. great idea. hiring is the way to go! yeah, definitely. but what if you want to ride waves standing up? is it even possible to buy a board that doesn't cost the earth? if anyone knows what the options are it isjohn isaac. he has been importing these polystyrene and polyurethane foam blanks to newquay for years. but why aren't there other options on the market? the products are there to a degree, but they are mostly not as affordable as the non—sustainable, and they don't perform quite as well yet. and that is the thing, isn't it? i think it requires quite a big investment of cash, cash ultimately... it needs the big players to get behind it. totally, and on a grand scale. there are new ideas and materials coming through all the time. eco boards made from flax and naturalfibres, even mushrooms. but many are still in the development stage or cost more. butjohn thinks he has something for me that might hit the sweet spot between sustainability and affordability. so, probably one of the biggest inroads into sustainability, with certainly traditional polyurethane foam, is these guys, which are essentially recycled polyurethane foam. the theory is, you make your surfboard, you save all the foam, you return it to these guys and remanufacture it back into polyurethane blanks. so, what's the downside? it's brown. the white surfboard is king — always has been. you want them to look whiter than white. it is a shame that surfers can't see through that. what about the price? £50—60 more. so, they are more expensive, but you could argue it is going to last you longer. so, a recycled, longer—lasting board — a step, at least, in the right direction. as the shaper gets to work, i want to find out what the mainstream industry is doing to be more sustainable. our next stop is here in taiwan. don't worry — to keep our carbon footprint down, we're using a locally based camera crew. it's here that one of the most successful mass—produced boards is made. this is the wavestorm. launched in 2006, it took the us — well — by storm. it doesn't cost a lot, you can buy it in a supermarket, and it's known as the people's board. it's a long way from the wooden works of art of the ancient hawaiians. it's been blamed for making boards so cheap, they can just be thrown away. today, the company says it's doing things in a more sustainable way. mark dale is the company's chief marketing officer. so, this is where we do a lot of lamination on the boards. the factory uses the latest tech to reduce its waste and reliance on those toxic resins. the cores are loaded to machine and we're using hot air here and it's applying the raw material right onto the board. we don't use any epoxies or glues that are damaging to the environment. the company says the carbon impact of manufacturing here is 90% less than rival boards. 0ur carbon footprint, it's about 24kg of c02 from cradle to grave. and epoxy surfboards are 250kg. but all these boards have got to end up somewhere. so, what are they doing about the waste? today, i'm catching up with mark, but i'm staying beachside in britain to keep those air miles down. the fact that a wavestorm board is so cheap, that's really adding to the amount of waste produced — there's no getting away from that. you know, we try to keep the price low for the people and when something's low, you know, you really tend to throw it on the ground or leave it in the garage or leave it outdoors in the rain. so, in your view, it's not the hundreds of thousands of boards you're producing, it's the people that are buying them and chucking them in landfill? yes, correct. the misconceptions about wavestorm is that, you know, we are creating this mass of boards that are meant for, you know, landfill if they're broken or not wanted and, you know, you can use a wavestorm board for, you know, many years. we don't build boards as disposable boards here. can this reallyjust be about consumer habits? well, the surf industry members association represents manufacturers across the globe. it says they've donated up to $80 million to groups working to protect the oceans. it says: so, change may be happening but there's still another murky side to surfing — the wetsuit. for me, here in the uk, having one is essential but choosing a sustainable option isn't going to be easy because, once again, the petrochemical industry is behind the traditional wetsuit material, neoprene. it's been used to manufacture them for more than 70 years. it's energy intensive to make and the toxic chemical it's so, change may be happening but there's still another murky side to surfing — the wetsuit. for me, here in the uk, having one is essential but choosing a sustainable option isn't going to be easy because, once again, the petrochemical industry is behind the traditional wetsuit material, neoprene. it's been used to manufacture them for more than 70 years. it's energy intensive to make and the toxic chemical it's made from is a possible carcinogen. and a neoprene wetsuit isn't going to biodegrade any time soon. it's estimated abouti million are incinerated or end up in landfill every year. recycling them hasn't been an option... ..until now. in an anonymous lock—up in east london, one british surf company has been collecting old wetsuits its customers had lying around. this is the collection of suits that we gathered, and i think... that's a lot of suits. ..just in this pile here, we've probably got about just over 950. less than four weeks, we've gathered these. yeah. we found these ones, which have got to be from the �*80s or �*90s. it's in really good condition. it's really good condition! neoprene is such a strong material that they've used it to line landfill in the past, so that goes to show how long it will take to degrade. yeah. but when it does, it's so harmful for the environment. have you got any idea of the scale of the problem you're trying to tackle? in all honesty, until we started this collection, not really. like, the stats aren't even out there. we've had to do our own research to look at the size of the global wetsuit market. we've conservatively come to probably about 8,000 tons of neoprene a year will ultimately end up in landfill because there's nowhere else to put them. so, what do they plan to do with all these old, washed—up wetsuits? well, six months later, this is the result. it may not look much, but company boss tom kay thinks it could be the future. we've taken the thousand wetsuits that were destined for landfill, sent them off to bulgaria and they've been repurposed into a foam wetsuit—like material that we are now testing in some cold water products this autumn. right. so, that could be part of a wetsuit? yeah. i mean, it seems pretty stiff. so, yeah, it's a bit stiff there but then you add a laminate on it like this and it starts to get a bit more of the properties that you need for a wetsuit. 0k... not quite able to make a fully functioning surf suit out of it yet, but it is a process. there are other options. this suit was made from natural rubber, harvested from sustainable plantations. but critics say this bio rubber isn't as durable or as cheap as oil—based neoprene. tom says the industry needs to invest in order to change. some of the press that's coming out around the toxicity of neoprene is extreme, to say the least, horrendous. so, if you knew that, why wouldn't you change? the industry says it's already supporting the development of alternative wetsuits. the surf industry members association told us it's been: but with recycled wetsuits still a way off, there's one other key message of sustainability i can get on board with, and that's repair. so, i've been looking at my own suit. this is years old. and i was thinking about getting a new one but now, i think i'm just going to patch it up. it can definitely last for a few more years like that. so, how's my new, recycled surfboard coming on? it's time to pick it up from local shaper dan. oh, my god! look at it! oh, my god. it is gorgeous! and this is the colour that will make it unpopular. that's the thing. if you use it in the right way, it's not — it's actually an all right colour — especially when you see the actualfinished product come up. you can see like a — the little sparkly effects to it. yeah. it's not exactly — it's not a horrible brown. this blank is perfect for, like, eco credentials, longevity. so, it's a bit harder to work with but this board's gonna last a lot longer, i can tell, just from the feel of it. so, myjourney to becoming a more environmentally friendly surfer has begun. but what does our sustainability expert dr greg borne think of my first steps? hi, greg. hello, claire. how are you? all right! good! so, here it is. wow. what do you think? i think it's lovely. it's amazing, isn't it? yeah. fantastic colours. yeah, yeah. so, we've made our choices. our board, i'm just going to wear my old suit until it shreds, and where we surf. how do you think i'm doing? i think that's an excellent start. excellent. so, your board now is not adding to that stock of polyurethane that's out there in the world and this board can be recycled once it reaches the end of its life as well. yeah. and the other steps? your choice is to keep your suit? just keep going... keep the suit. ..till it shreds. till it shreds? absolutely, which is a fantastic option. you know, consume less. there's issues, though, still with image, and this image of surfing is essentially one of consumption. it's a business, and they're turning a profit. but they're turning a profit now in a way that's starting to consider the sustainability factors, and i'm really quite confident and hopeful about that transition towards sustainability as we move into the future. as for me, that leaves just one more step to take, and that's to try to actually stand up on some real waves. it's clear many believe surfing needs to clean up its act. but for now, even a few small steps can help to create a wave of change. good morning. well, with the change of month, once again, we're likely to see a change of weather fortunes. high pressure is going to build as we head into the weekend and for the first week of september. yes, we'll see some early morning mist and fog first thing but on the whole, for most of us, it will be dry, sunny and increasingly warm. ahead of that, though, we've still got to get rid of this messy—looking weather front that's going to produce some low cloud and some drizzle first thing in the morning, particularly through northern ireland, scottish borders, down into the north of england. now, to the north of that, clear skies and a chilly start but sunny start for scotland. to the south of that, a cloudy start but the cloud will thin and break and a few scattered showers break out. one or two of those could be quite hefty. top temperatures generally between 17 and 22 celsius. now, as we move into the weekend, we are likely to see that frontal system easing away and the high pressure starts to build from the west. we could start off with a little bit of patchy low cloud, mist and fog across central and eastern england. clearer skies further north here. single figures to start off our saturday. so, that mist will take its time to clear away but on the whole, it's all about high pressure. a weak weather front will bring some breezier and wetter conditions to the north but with lighter winds first thing in the morning, it could start off a little bit murky and disappointing. it won't be long, though, before we see some sunshine breaking through and the warmth starts to build. so, as we go into saturday, yes, a grey start for some. more sunshine further north and west. this weather front trying to push in but really, not making too much of an impression for the first half of the weekend. as we go through the afternoon, there'll be some decent sunny spells and temperatures will start to climb, 23 or 2a degrees — that's into the mid 70s fahrenheit. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday, there's that weatherfront, bringing some breezier conditions and rain to the far north—west but on the whole, sunday will be a dry day with plenty of sunshine coming through and a degree or so warmer by the middle part of the afternoon — mid 20s quite possible across central and southern parts of england. warmer still as we go through the week ahead — in fact, some places could see temperatures into the high 20s by the middle part of the week. take care. live from washington, this is bbc news. a deadly fire injohannesburg prompts calls for action, with promises of an investigation by the government. police in brazil question former presidentjair bolsonaro over embezzlement allegations. and, water cannons and world powers. why tensions are flaring in the south china sea. hello, i'm caitriona perry. south africa's president cyril ramaphosa has described a fire disaster injohannesburg as a wake—up call stressing problems of inner city housing that must be addressed. 12 children are among 7a people killed in a fire that destroyed a five—storey building. dozens were injured. the structure had previously been declared unsafe, but was taken over by illegal property gangs who rented it out — mostly to migrants from other parts of africa. the bbc�*s shingai nyoka reports. screams. the sound of screaming piercing the night in the heart of africa's richest city. "fire! fire!" they shout from a burning building home to hundreds of people. officials say many residents were trapped inside by a gate, blocked by the bodies of those who had already died.