MAR 26

A boat aptly called the Plastiki, made out of 12,500 recyclable plastic bottles filled with carbon dioxide, has set sail for a great voyage through the Pacific.  While it seems like an extreme stunt, the journey has more of a purpose than just seeing if a plastic boat can make the trip.

By now, many of us have heard about the giant collection of floating plastic known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  The large aquatic dump is located in the North Pacific Gyre, one of the five major vortices of currents in the world's oceans.  It is twice the size of Texas and contains billions of tiny pieces of plastic.

The boat's crew including David de Rothschild, Jo Royle and David Thomson came up with this interesting way to draw more attention to the tons of plastic that make it into our oceans.  They constructed the Plastiki to tour the Pacific Ocean, teaching us about recycling and lowering our consumption along the way.

The team will take approximately three months to reach Sydney, Australia from San Francisco, heading straight through the garbage patch.  They will also visit other environmental hot spots including damaged coral reefs and low-lying island nations threatened by rising sea waters.

The boat is outfitted with rain collection tanks for fresh water, a gas stove for cooking food, a vertical garden on the back mast for growing food and fishing tackle for catching fresh fish.  It also has solar panels, wind and sea turbines and exercise bikes for power generation.

You can track their voyage and see more details about the boat, the route and the cause here.

Comments (7)

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Recycling mission?
written by Rich, March 26, 2010

Is there a point at which it becomes profitable (or even break even) to send a ship out to one or more of the vortices to reclaim a bunch of plastic for recycling?

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reduce reuse
written by sarah, March 27, 2010

i guess it depends on the type of plastic. when i was little I wished for a magic button that would take all the aluminum cans on the road sides and put it on one big pile. and all the steal cans and put them in an other pile. we would go out with magnets looking for aluminum cans. my magic button could sort plastic too.

It makes one wonder how in a billion years if left alone if there would be mines of plastic like our coal today. if it was all just created by giant vortexes of shtuff floating until it made a new land mass.

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A worthless publicity stunt.
written by BiomassOne, March 27, 2010

This publicity stunt is going to achieve nothing at all. If the world truly cared about waste plastics laws would have been passed, attempts made to clean up etc.

If people don't already know about the immense about of plastic in the Pacific gyre then I wonder where they have been for the last 20 years.

I think this journey is probably entirely about making a film or documentary and profiting from the pollution.

@Rich: Your question shows much ignorance. The plastic degrades over time into smaller and smaller particles. Fish mistake the small particles for food. If you eat fish then you eventually eat the plastic.

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it's worth something...
written by Lu, March 28, 2010

At least for HP, which gets yet another page to advertise its products and love of ecology...

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When The Oil Runs Out...
written by Carol, April 05, 2010

Just remember, everyone, when the crude oil supppy runs out, all this plastic that is now "junk" will be worth its weight in gold. Any company that can start now to clean up the North Pacific Gyre, and make all that junk plastic into reusable material, will be hugely profitable for decades to come. I would buy their stock on the stock market...

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these kinds of ideas are needed
written by amelie, April 21, 2010

And New York State has just announced it is shutting down the only fully green college in the US that focuses entirely on environmental sustainabilities and has a wonderful Coastal Environment Sustainability major that will cease to exist. This is exactly the kind of thing those students are learning to do. What a waste. These kinds of college programs are needed now. Help keep it alive - go to facebook page SAVE STONY-BROOK SOUTHAMPTON CAMPUS to sign petition.

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...
written by Betty, July 16, 2012

It also has solar panels, wind and sea turbines and exercise bikes for power generation.

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