“When I started surfing in 2007 in Hainan, surfing was a very young sport in China,” says Liu. “[But it became] popular very quickly, and that was as exciting as it was frightening.” Because with popularity came investors, who may “not necessarily care about surfing. They wanted to make quick money and did not care about their impact on the environment.”

Indeed, in 2007 China overtook America as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, and in 2010, 1.2 million premature deaths were linked to air pollution in China. And in 2011, the country came close to burning as much coal as the rest of the world combined. 

For Liu, it was clear soon after she found surfing that she needed to act as soon as possible. The pro-surfer started organising beach clean-ups in 2009 to protect the environment and raise awareness about beach pollution. And then she took it to the next level during the pandemic by creating the Clean Island Movement.

Once a month, Liu organises gatherings in Hainan where people come together to collect rubbish from the island’s more remote shores. She has also stationed specially painted rubbish bins on these beaches to encourage surfers and visitors to properly dispose of their waste. And aside from the monthly public events, Liu also arranges weekly clean-ups to empty those bins, in an attempt to keep the shores as clean as possible. 

“These events were quite unique in China, and became popular quickly,” she says. “Many tourists choose to spend their vacations in Hainan cleaning beaches with us. They take pictures, post them on social media, and spread the world. This is the beauty of our community.” 

Now, with her company Island life, Liu is hoping to change the norm for surfing: “We organise surf-competitions that are completely zero waste—from dispensing water for water bottles to reusing all the banners we display. We want to inspire people to act responsibly.”

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More than 1,000 kilometres away, the beaches of La Union in the Philippines have provided popular surfing spots for decades. “Surf tourism has helped improve many lives,” says surfer and writer of The Next Wave, Camille Pilar. “[But] we have to be careful not to let greed get in the way, because greed always comes at the price of nature.”

Pilar was made aware of this price very early on. As a kid, she regularly joined her father, a scuba diver, in what they call “scubasurero” dive trips—a compound word for “scuba” and “garbage collector” in Tagalog.

“We would pick up trash that littered the sea floor and put it in sacks,” she says. “But it would still be a common occurrence to see plastic floating around as I surfed.” 

Imbued with the will to protect her surroundings, Pilar created the @bannedfromthebeach Instagram account in 2017 to show the “not so Instagrammable” side of tourism, such as the littering that comes with the influx of travellers.

The account gained a lot of traction at the time, but she decided to stop updating the account that same year because she felt that @bannedfromthebeach “beach shamed” and failed to celebrate the existing efforts to keep Philippine beaches clean. Also, she ultimately decided “that making change fun is more effective than adopting a tone of fear-mongering and blame”.

While she slowly stepped back from updating on that account, she started to work more on her next project: the Clean Beach Café, a solar-powered beachfront cafe “with sustainability at the core of its business practices” that opened in 2017. 

Half a decade later, the cafe is thriving and setting an example in the region for how business and sustainability can go hand in hand. While the delicious menu and fun DJ sets attract surfers to the cafe, its ethos that prioritises environmental protection helps spread the message about incorporating and maintaining sustainable habits in our everyday lives. 

Its most popular initiative is the “beach basket”, and the concept is simple: collect a basket full of litter picked up from the beach and bring it to the cafe for a free iced coffee or tea. It is a popular initiative among students, but also with surfers who want to give back to the community.

“Surfers are known for practising being in the present moment,” Pilar explains. “But adopting a sustainable lifestyle takes it a step further. We are [living in the] present by preserving what we have today so that future generations can enjoy it as well.”

However, she recognises that sustainable living is no walk in the park: “It’s constant practice, and a shaping of mindset. Getting better at sustainability takes time and commitment—just like mastering any surfing manoeuvre. So just keep going.” 

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