The Cigarette Surfboard review: An informative, entertaining and heartwarming environment documentary

Beaches and shorelines the world over are under attack from the waste humankind leaves in its wake, and discarded cigarette filters rank among the most perniciously invasive of blots on the landscape.

Enter California surfer and activist Taylor Lane, to highlight the issue in attention-grabbing fashion – by building a surfboard made of said cigarette butts.

It’s the stuff of off-the-wall “and finally” reports at the close of news bulletins, perhaps, yet beyond the initial novelty value, Lane’s plan had a knock-on effect of inspiring numerous, successful green initiatives across the globe.

The answer to the riddle “how many butts does it take to make a surfboard” is approximately 10,000, a number Lane found relatively easy to reach by combing West Coast seafronts alone, such was the ubiquity with which smokers failed to dispose of them properly.

However, just collecting them in refuse sacks was never going to cut it as a form of protest, so the “ciggy board” concept was birthed with the rigour and chutzpah of ultra-enthusiastic Wombles making good use of the things that they find.

Documentary maker Ben Judkins came on board to chronicle the project, shadowing Lane every step of the way, from the gathering of the raw materials to the painstaking construction of the first board, and beyond to, crucially, producing something that met the demanding needs of the professional surfer community – less gimmick, more Grade A coveted item of sporting equipment.

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Former US Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth may have been an Oscar-winner, and although it helped give environmental issues a hitherto only dreamed-of mainstream media platform, its shocks and revelations were delivered in an overly sombre tone.

While Gore may have been a skilled communicator, he was never overly blessed with charisma; Lane, however, is a vibrant, animated figure with a common touch and a curveball way of thinking; as he says himself at one point in the documentary, “don’t be afraid to be weird".

In tandem with Judkins's gorgeously photographed footage of idyllic sands and crashing waves, populated by Zen-like surf enthusiasts who talk about being “at one with the ocean”, Lane’s infectious activism wins over professionals at first wary of the board’s practical capabilities but fully behind its intentions.

The story up to this point would have made a fine film on its own, but Judkins has the joy of watching the project snowball and become an ever bigger conversation when Lane takes the finished board “on tour".

Setting out to South Africa, New Zealand and various other places where jargon like shredding, skagging, pounders, wedges and nose ride are part of everyday language, Lane and his board emerge as celebrities, symbols of an eco-conscience that effortlessly attracts others to the cause.

Via the ciggy board, Judkins has the opportunity for his film to shine a light on other equally admirable campaigners; on a stop-off in the UK, he learns of the activities of Surfers Against Sewage, the pressure group who convinced the government to invest millions of pounds on clean-up operations at dozens of beaches, including wholesale overhauls of filtration systems.

In Hawaii, he meets with former professional surfer turned chart-topping singer-songwriter Jack Johnson, who is so impressed with the ciggy board that it motivates him to focus on environmental sustainability work of his own, lobbying promoters of his sell-out concerts to rethink the use of plastic drinks containers at refreshment stalls.

It’s wonderfully heartwarming throughout, an informative and entertaining film that’s testament to Judkins and Lane’s dogged determination to clean up the environment to the point where the world, to paraphrase a song by rapper Jay-Z, may have 99 problems but the beach ain’t one.

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The Cigarette Surfboard is available to watch online from Tuesday 15 – Sunday 27 September.

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