Originally from New York, Christian Shaw paddles out of Santa Cruz, California and is a water-man with a huge focus on stand up paddling. He's a SUP Surfer, whitewater paddler and a competitor at races including the 11 cities...he certainly rolls up his sleeves and gets involved.
After a conference in 2014, Christian and fellow environmentalists were inspired to set up Plastic Tides , an organisation with the goal "to inspire action toward a plastic-free future, through adventure, education and youth empowerment".
It's a noble goal and one that they've been doing extremely effectively.
We discuss how he mixed his anti-plastic ambitions with stand up paddle and how well the sport has served as a platform to deliver the message.
Plastic has some frightening statistics. In 2015 381 million tonnes of plastic was created worldwide, 19.5% of which was recycled, 25.5% incinerated and 55% discarded.
8 million tonnes of plastic finds its way into the ocean every year and there are a ton more statistics here: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
Watch the film of Christian's SUP circumnavigation of Bermuda back in 2014 https://vimeo.com/129335820
The study results from his trip are posted on this study map https://www.adventurescientists.org/microplastics.html
Since Bermuda, there have been many other trips and there are many more to come.
We really hope that you enjoyed this podcast. As a thank you, grab a free list of our 14 favourite and most useful paddle apps by signing up at www.supfm.show
Mahalo!
Mentioned in this episode:
Paddle UK and ICF World Cup 2026
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