Photos: Courtesy Adventure EcologyA sailboat made almost entirely from plastic bottles arrived in Sidney, Australia a month ago, ending a four-month voyage across the Pacific Ocean to highlight the importance of recycling.
The Plastiki is an 18-meter catamaran made up of 12,500 plastic two-liter soda bottles and is the brainchild of 31-year-old British banking heir David de Rothschild., who led a crew of six through fierce storms on the 15,000-kilometer trip from San Francisco.
David de Rothschild's unusual boat is his way of drawing attention to the plastic polluting the world's oceans while also showcasing a solution.
"We're on a mission to beat waste," says de Rothschild. "The Plastiki project is trying to showcase that waste is inefficient design and that we can reuse everyday materials. We can repurpose and build items that can be reused so we can close the loop."
The name Plastiki echoes the Kon-Tiki, the raft that Norwegian anthropologist and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl built to cross the Pacific in 1947. His grandson, Olaf Heyerdahl, was one of six crew members on the first leg of the Plastiki voyage, from San Francisco to Christmas Island.
David de Rothschild, founder of Adventure Ecology — a London-based environmental education group — brought ecology-minded features to all aspects of the expedition, starting with the Plastiki's design.
Rothschild says they learned a lot during the process. " It took three years to build this unique vessel. One of the breakthroughs of the project was that we actually reenergized every bottle with a little bit of CO2. We invented an effective glue made of sugar and the husks of cashew nuts to hold the plastic parts together. Even the ship's sails were made from recycled plastic. We installed solar cells, wind and propeller turbines and a human-powered bicycle on board to power communications equipment. And we had a hydroponic garden to get fresh vegetables. The provisions were designed to last 110 days, and one month before reaching Sydney, we were still eating fresh, organic food from San Francisco. But when water ran low, we chose to drink it rather than water the garden, which wilted".
During the vessel's first 8,000 kilometers, the catamaran moved somewhat sideways because it was built without a keel. That made it difficult to steer. When the Plastiki reached its second port of call, Samoa, de Rothschild made needed repairs and adaptations to the boat, adding a rudimentary retractable keel.
The voyage, combined with intense tropical heat, caused some material to shift a
nd soften so Samoa workers put a layer of aluminum over the original recycled plastic material.The boat also traveled more slowly than de Rothschild had hoped, leading to discomforts beyond the exposure to sun and salt and lack of bathing facilities.
"There were days when the boat barely moved, like when we sailed almost on the same spot for 24 hours. That became a little bit of a challenge mentally."
The crew lived on a 6-by-18 meter covered platform suspended between the two hulls. When not sailing the vessel, the crew members blogged on the Plastiki website, posted photos on Flickr and videos on YouTube, and took questions from followers on the boat's Facebook page. All the while, they sent messages about plastic pollution in the ocean.
The feedback came in almost instantaneously. Like from a conversation via skype with 150 children at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Texas. They had just walked through a tunnel built from 8,000 plastic bottles called, "Sea 'n' Recycle: In Honor of Plastiki."
He originally planned to recycle the boat in Australia. But an international outpouring of interest in its use for educational purposes convinced him to keep it afloat, at least for a few more years. Its first stop will be the Australian Maritime Museum at Darling Harbor.
Average plastic concentration and range of the North Atlantic garbage patch(source: Wired)Adapted from VOA and Wired
