It’s been several months since we brought you news of the Plastiki, a boat made of 12,500 plastic bottles, so we figured it was time for an update. When we left the Plastiki expedition last, David de Rothschild, the founder of Adventure Ecology, was making preparations to steer his plastic sailboat towards the floating landfill in the Pacific Ocean. Some time has passed, but we’re excited to report that Plastiki is nearly ready to set sail upon the open sea!
After overcoming significant design hurdles – after all, constructing a boat made out of plastic bottles can’t be easy – the team has settled on a final design. The Plastiki will be made out of 12,500 2 liter plastic bottles tied to a structure made out of Self Reinforcing Polyethylene Terephthalate (SRPET). The final weight of the 60 foot boat will be around 9 tons plus the weight of the crew of six people. Thinking ahead, the boat will be upcycled, though they still don’t know into what. That decision they say, will be left to the Plastiki community.
The boat is now under construction, and expected to sail from San Francisco to Sydney in August. We’ll be keeping you posted about any updates as they happen.
+ Plastiki Plastic Bottle Boat
Plastiki is a very cool, high profile way to call attention to the state of our oceans. However, while Mr. DeRothschild will be safely in a boat sailing on top of ocean pollution, on the other side of the country a lesser known ocean eco-adventurer, Christopher Swain, is literally swimming through it.
Your readers might want to check out Christopher who dove into the frigid and dirty Atlantic ocean on Earth Day 2009 to commence a 1,000 mile, 2-year swim from New England to Washington DC – an eco-expedition to show the world “unhelpful human activities” that are destroying our ocean planet.
He’s swimming through water contaminated with toxic algae blooms, oil slicks, trash, heavy metals, fire retardants, sewage and nuclear waste… not to mention rip tides, rain, snow, lightning, high winds, freighters, bull sharks and tiger sharks.
It’s really an amazing story. changents.com/christopherswain
Now this is the true essence of waterfront living!! Happy Sails!!