Richpeoplethings is the name of a peculiar company that is situated in Murcia. Its name links to their philosophy of looking for richness inside people, in no material aspects. They proposal is listening to nature, learn and respect them.
Their proposal is connecting corks. Ángel Rodríguez, the inventor, approached nature to surf. Until this moment, blanks (board core of surf) were produced with foam (polythene foam), that absorbed water and provoked decomposed. After years of research, he gets the same results but with cork, then they registered their first patent (nº 200901021). Ángel demonstrated that their boards were between 300% and 500% more resistant that the ones that were produced with petrol derivatives, because cork breaths and doesn´t break, it doesn ´t absorb water and it doesn´t spoil.
This initiative is interesting from an environmental point of view. Cork comes from cork oak, they are trees that can absorb carbon dioxide. We avoid wood cutting, because tree should be life and in good conditions to regenerate bark. This process is slow, each nine years the tree gets to make again the bark cut. It is a process that respects nature with low impact.
These are some of the amazing physical and chemical characteristics from cork:
– lightness
– elasticity
– high friction coefficient
– high impermeability
– aeroelasticity
– shock absorber
– poisson coefficient 0.
Due to these amazing physical and structural properties of cork, they are ideal for blanks and being in marine environment.
This proposal had a great mass media impact worldwide. It goal is to offer an alternative clean and take advantage of this raw material. Spain throw to the garbage about 2.500 tone of lids per years.
Surf is a fashion sport, especially in USA and Australia, although all the people worldwide do it. As Surf Industry Manufacturers Association says, surf industry lives a boom, but some the exit comes from the clothes and complements that goes with this it. Europe, France and Spain concentrate board production. Richpeoplethings is in market that is controlled by very few companies-
Richpeoplethings collects lids with corkcollectors. They classify by sizes. As bees do, they build the board making hexagons. They use natural components through the process: resin pine, fiber, bioresin.
More info in:
http://www.asecor.com/corcho.php?lang=es&sec=2
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcho
http://www.iprocor.org/
