Taylor Lane shaped a surfboard made from 10,000 beach-littered cigarettes.
Last year, he produced a bodysurfing handplane using champagne corks, old t-shirts, fiberglass scraps, an old wetsuit, climbing ropes, and entropy resins for VISSLA's Creators & Innovators Upcycle Contest.
Now, the California surfer wanted to go beyond his own limits and spent countless hours collecting the number one item found on beaches and roadsides.
Cigarette butts leach toxic chemicals into the environment including lead, arsenic, and nicotine - the same toxic chemicals found in secondhand smoke.
These small and poisonous items represent 34 percent of the total litter collected in California. The Golden State spends $41 million annually on litter clean up.
Lane's unusual surfboard was not an instant hit. When he first paddled out, the board sank and absorbed a lot of water. But Taylor didn't quit. Instead, he re-shaped it.
He pulled the top layer of butts off, removed the soaked cigs, and put new butts back in. Did it work out the way he had planned? Definitely.
"It's heavy but once it gets going is just any board. You can turn it," stressed Taylor Lane, who ended up winning this year's Creators & Innovators Upcycle Contest.
The board weighs 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms), is easy to paddle and goes down the line fast. And the good news is that our beaches are cleaner and healthier thanks to this ingenious surf craft.