MountainFLOW Eco-Wax Is The Only Plant-Based Ski Wax In North America

CARBONDALE, Colo. (CBS4)- A Colorado start-up is hoping to revolutionize the ski industry and help the planet at the same time. MountainFLOW is starting in Carbondale, hoping to make ski wax from plants instead of petroleum-based products like what's on the market now.

"We were pretty surprised to learn that there was no plant-based ski wax available in North America.  Before we came on, the only option was petroleum-based ski wax," said MountainFLOW founder Peter Arlein.

For the past two years, Arlein has been working to perfect a wax that can go on skis and snowboards and not lose performance compared to petroleum-based products.

"Whatever you put on your skis, goes directly into the snowpack, and then into local rivers. So rather than putting petroleum into the rivers, we thought, let's come up with a plant-based alternative and then we're not polluting our local rivers," he said.

That has been estimated to be millions of pounds of ski wax each year entering the environment.

Arlein says the formula is top secret, but it uses several different waxes from plants and tests he's conducted show a comparable speed to standard ski waxes.

To get the concept off the ground MountainFLOW is on Kickstarter.

"We launched this on Kickstarter a couple of weeks ago. We've got one week left in the campaign and we're 85% funded," said Arlein. "We were looking for stuff that was really fast, has good slip, and also really durable."