Boat made of plastic bottles crosses ocean
Boat made of plastic bottles crosses ocean
A sailboat largely constructed from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles has completed a 4-month journey across the Pacific Ocean meant to raise awareness about the perils of plastic waste.
It was inspired by a United Nations report in 2006 that said pollution — and particularly plastic waste — was seriously threatening the world's oceans.
The Plastiki, a 60-foot (18-meter) catamaran, and its six crew weathered fierce ocean storms during its 8,000 nautical miles at sea. It left San Francisco on March 20, stopping along the way at various South Pacific island nations including Kiribati and Samoa. It docked Monday in Sydney Harbour.
"This is the hardest part of the journey so far — getting it in!" expedition leader David de Rothschild yelled from the boat as the crew struggled to maneuver the notoriously tough-to-steer vessel into port outside the Australian National Maritime Museum.
"It has been an extraordinary adventure," he said.
The boat is almost entirely made up of bottles, which are held together with an organic glue made of sugar cane and cashews, but includes other materials too. The mast, for instance, is recycled aluminum irrigation pipe.
During their 128-day journey, the six crew lived in a cabin of just 20 feet by 15 feet (6 meters by 4.5 meters), took saltwater showers, and survived on a diet of dehydrated and canned food, supplemented with the occasional vegetable from their small on-board garden.
Skipper Jo Royle also had the particular challenge of being the only woman on board.
Although the team had originally hoped to recycle the Plastiki, de Rothschild said they are now thinking of keeping it intact, and using it as a way of enlightening people to the power of recycling.
"There were many times when people looked at us and said, 'you're crazy,'" de Rothschild said. "I think it drove us on to say, 'Anything's possible.'"
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- Posted on July 26, 2010
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If a boat was made of plastic bottles and it went across the ocean then the person who built that took allot of time and effort to make and plane this boat.
Wow, this is just a great thing. Now we know that we can actually make recyclable and reusable items that can be extremely useful. This will now help scientists develop new and more useful ideas. As we all know we have to create new ideas for our future. Now we have something that can go over seas, so we can have transportation without allot of fuel.
Wow! that is amazing! No wonder we are supposed to recycle. Look at how cool a plastic bottle boat is. That did so much more then waste could ever do. I have to agree with DE Rothschild, anything is possible. I would have loved to seen this in action.
It is amazing how a boat made of only plastic bottles could cross an entire ocean! It floated for 4 months in total which is outstanding! I wonder how they got so much plastic bottles to build the boat. It is good that it is made of recycled materials. Also the fact that all of it is glued together is fantastic! I could imagine how hard it was to get in and even make the boat with only plastic bottles and few other recycled materials. It is very cool what people can do today.
Those people must really care about the earth. If they would live in a sailboat, eat lame food, and stay at sea for 128 days, I think they are crazy. I wonder if any of them got sea sick and I don't get how the boat could hold up through harsh storms.
This boat is amazing! That must have taken along time to build but its worth it. Now that they made a boat out of plastic bottles they could make a lot of boats out of plastic bottles and save more money. Plus it's better for the environment. I cant wait to see more things that they make.
i would not have thought that something like that would have ever happened i think that is so neat i would like to ride on a boat like that.
that's cool to make a ship out of plastic bottles if i had the time to do it i might try but mine probably float i would end up swimming in the sea with the sharks.
That's really cool. That is also a lot of plastic bottles. I wonder were they got all of them. I'm also surprised it floated, for that long.
WOW ! that is really amazing. I hope to do something like that one day. . . I wonder if they need bottles?
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