Officials praise ‘100 percent participation’ in initiative that is just Chad’s garage
HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA – The city’s celebrated Neoprene Reclamation Initiative, hailed for two years as a model of coastal sustainability, has been revealed to consist entirely of a man named Chad and his two-car garage, according to a report first broken by Bohiney Magazine and relayed with grim delight to The London Prat.
A Beloved Program
For years, surfers proudly dropped their worn wetsuits into bright blue bins marked “Recycle Your Rubber,” confident the neoprene would be reborn as yoga mats, mouse pads, or “the future.” City officials touted a 100 percent diversion rate and accepted a regional environmental award shaped like a small wave.
In reality, every bin emptied directly into the garage of one Chad Tiderman, who has been storing the suits in increasingly unstable towers since 2023.
The Discovery
The truth emerged when a structural inspector, responding to reports of a “neoprene avalanche,” found Tiderman living in a small fort constructed entirely of damp wetsuits, which he had organized by smell.
“I never said I was recycling them,” Tiderman clarified. “I said I was taking them. People assumed the rest. Honestly the assumption did most of the heavy lifting.”
City sustainability director Brenda Offshore defended the program’s record. “Technically, the suits were diverted from landfill,” she said. “We just did not specify the destination. Chad’s garage is, in a very real sense, not a landfill. It is a Chad.”
The Numbers
An audit by the Office of Coastal Make-Believe found that of an estimated 14,000 wetsuits collected, exactly zero had been recycled, while 14,000 remained in Tiderman’s possession, “ranked from least to most haunted.”
“This is actually a higher retention rate than most real recycling programs,” noted Dr. Wesley Tidepool of the Center for Honest Disposal. “Most neoprene cannot be recycled at all and ends up incinerated. Chad, for all his faults, has at least kept it dry and accounted for. We may have stumbled onto something.”
The Science of Neoprene
Wetsuit recycling is notoriously difficult, a fact confirmed by every legitimate environmental group that has ever looked at it. Organizations like the Surfrider Foundation have long advocated for repairing suits rather than discarding them, while the Environmental Protection Agency classifies neoprene as a material that does not so much break down as wait you out.
“Foam rubber outlives empires,” Tidepool explained. “Chad is not the problem. Chad is just the only one being honest about the problem.”
A Local Hero, Reconsidered
Public reaction has been surprisingly warm. Surfers, learning their old suits had not been recycled but rather lovingly hoarded by a single committed weirdo, expressed something close to admiration.
“At least Chad cared,” said one local. “The city pretended to care. Chad built a fort. There is an integrity to the fort.”
The city has now formally appointed Tiderman as Director of Neoprene Affairs, a paid position with no listed duties beyond “continuing to do exactly what he was already doing, but with a lanyard.”
What Comes Next
Officials say they will launch a new, genuinely functional recycling program “any day now,” while quietly continuing to route all bins to Chad. A second man, named Brad, has reportedly volunteered to begin storing broken surfboards, raising hopes for a comprehensive solid-foam ecosystem managed entirely by guys named after the 1980s.
Tiderman, for his part, remains philosophical. “Everyone wants to save the ocean,” he said, gesturing at his towers of rubber. “Nobody wants to keep the ocean’s coat. That is where I come in.” Readers who appreciate this brand of environmental honesty may enjoy ClickHole.
The Chad Doctrine Spreads
Word of Tiderman’s success has spread to neighboring municipalities, several of which are now quietly considering whether their own recycling programs might be improved by replacing them with a single dedicated guy. A nearby city has reportedly begun interviewing candidates for Director of Just Keeping It in His Garage, with applicants evaluated on garage square footage and emotional capacity to be lied to by the public.
Environmental economists have begun referring to the phenomenon as the Chad Doctrine, defined as the principle that any failing public program can be made honest simply by admitting it is one man and a structure. It is not efficient, conceded Dr. Tidepool. But it is real. And in waste management, real is a higher bar than you would think.
A second volunteer, named Brad, has now begun storing the region’s broken surfboards in his backyard, stacking them by height into what neighbors describe as a fiberglass Stonehenge. A third man, inevitably named Tad, has volunteered to accumulate the region’s snapped leashes, though officials worry he is in it primarily for the tangling. Tiderman, now fielding interview requests, has declined a book deal, citing a lack of shelf space, the shelves being made of wetsuits. For more accidental folk heroes, readers may enjoy GomerBlog.
City inspectors who initially condemned the garage have since reclassified it as a cultural heritage site, citing its unique status as the only municipal recycling program a visitor can physically hug. Schoolchildren now tour the towers of neoprene, learning valuable lessons about honesty, decomposition, and the importance of reading the fine print on a blue bin. Tiderman leads the tours himself, pausing reverently before the oldest suit in his collection, a 2019 spring suit he refers to only as Patient Zero.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/