Yes, as the title says, there is a boat made out of plastic water bottles. This boat, called Plastiki, is made completely out of plastic bottles and recycled waste products. They plan to sail this boat starting in August 2009. When it is complete, Plastiki will be comprised of 12,500 2-liter plastic bottles that have been collected by Waste Management. The whole boat will end up weighing 9 tons and will support a team of 6 crew members.
The boat also has a composting toilet on board, renewable energy, and a garden.
Why was this plastic boat made? Well, David De Rothschild, founder of the company Adventure Ecology, wanted to raise awareness about the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch. He plans on sailing this boat made of only plastic bottles and recycled materials from San Fransisco to Sydney, Australia. He wants to raise awareness about the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch because it happens to be a floating landfill that is, get this, twice the size of Texas. Ever heard of it? I had not until now, but it apparently is located between California and Hawaii. It is because of this landfill that there are masses of plastic materials floating around in the oceans.
Yes, this boat will help the problem of doing nothing with plastic bottles, but that is not the main goal. The point of building this boat entirely from plastic is to make people more aware of being green and of recycling. He wants to get people talking and involved. For instance, did you know that we consume 200 billion liters of bottled water every year but that about only one in five bottles is actually recycled? I did not know that until I read an article about this new boat.
I think that this boat is a great invention–not only because it will use 12,500 plastic bottles but that it will start conversations and turn some heads. I wish the crew the best of luck as they venture from San Francisco to Sydney, Australia, with Plastiki!
