'New life': the surfer using art to save old boards from landfill

Guessing he has about 70 at the moment, he finds them at the tip, by the side of the road, and receives some by donation.

"The whole side of my house is full of boards," he said.

For the past year he's been saving old boards destined for landfill.

Once someone's pride and joy but now set aside and forgotten, King uses the old boards in creative workshops, turning them into artwork through his business Creative Kooks.

"There is a lot of prep work involved, I de-wax them and sand them so I try and set aside a day or a couple of days especially coming into school holidays," he said.

Based at Kiama but running workshops in preschools, music festivals and community events along the south coast, King's idea crept up from a wet day spent at home.

"I was just clutching at straws on how to entertain my daughter so we got one of my old surfboards and we both painted it and she loved it," he said.

"She loved the idea of painting on a surface that was naughty and [she was] not supposed to and it revived the board and gave it new life."

Careful not to describe himself as an eco warrior, King said the workshops have rescued 136 surfboards so far.

It's a way of doing his bit as the country struggles to reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfill.

With about 76 million tonnes of waste produced each year, Australia compares poorly against other mostly rich countries when it comes to recycling.

King said it's important to pass on the message we could be doing more to reuse instead of throw out.

"I do a lot of vacation care [workshops] during the school holidays and the educators and the teachers always come back and say the ones that they didn't expect to sort of sit down and paint they're the ones that are painting the longest," he said.

It has been a unique work life for King after quitting his mining job and starting a podcast series under the name South Coast Kook.

Equipped with a love of the beach and surfing, he decided to take a number of chances that would push him well outside his comfort zone.

"I'm not any sort of artist, I don't have any kind of art background I just wanted to see what the young people and kids wanted," he said.

"We started off doing board art but now I do a learn to surf program as well with the younger kids where I do basic yoga and balance board work and a bit of movement before we paint.

"I'm trying to implement a felt board where I get kids to put up flags on the beach and identify rips...it's becoming more and more like surf awareness."

Part of taking on new challenges is delivering his sustainability message to a wider audience. A speaker at Ignite Berry - a program of TED style talks delivered in five minutes - King joined 14 other presenters from diverse backgrounds to share his story.

"I was so nervous, I've never really done much public speaking before," he said. "But that just made me realise how much more I needed to do it, to stretch and grow and get experience under the belt.

"It's definitely something I really like talking about because a lot of people are a little confused about what we do but once they see it in action and the photos it gets people interested."