There are untold tons of garbage floating around in our oceans, but one East Coast artist says he’s found the answer to alleviating some of that problem: sustainable surfboards.

It’s the brainchild of designer Kevin Cunningham, an avid surfer who says he came up with the idea during his many walks on the beach with his dog. Over time, it dawned on him with all the trash floating around in the water — glass, cardboard, plastic and who-knows-what-else — there must be a better way to address that problem and at least get some practical fun out of it.

So after getting his refuse-recycling technique down, this Rhode Island School of Design grad set up a Kickstarter project earlier this year for his company, Spirare Surfboards.

As part of the effort, Cunningham asked for funding to create a series of boards that could be shown in galleries around the nation.

After the gallery show is mounted, he pledged to create a series of 100 limited-edition surfboards that would be custom-made, hand-shaped, signed and numbered. (Signatories to this project will be offered priority ordering on the boards when the time comes.) Sixty-eight backers and $3,899 in pledges later, Cunningham’s dream is coming alive.

“Surfers traditionally respect the ocean and environment and actively work to protect it, yet we ride surfboards that are made from highly toxic materials that are a hazard to both the people who make them and the environment,” Cunningham says on his site.

Cunningham’s current line of boards are all hand-shaped and based on either conventional polyurethane foam, wood with a expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam interior or an all-wood honeycomb core.

But Cunningham’s larger hope is get his line of “functional fine-art surfboards” under the feet of surfers from Rhode Island to Big Sur, and a few dozen backers have quickly sent him closer to that goal.

“Surfing has a soulful dance-like quality of performance art,” he said in his Kickstarter plea. “We need to work to prevent the stage from being destroyed.

[h/t Planetsave]