From the lips of the banking heir David de Rothschild; we need to stop thinking of trash and waste and start seeing it as a resource. Well said, David. Of the triple RRR's; Renew, Recycle & Reuse; Reuse seems to be the one most frequently overlooked. Case in point; I stopped using plastic water bottles many months back however prior to that I was diligent about recycling them. I thought that was the best that could be done until I saw this video. "Plastiki" (AWESOME name!) is a 60 foot catamaran kept afloat with plastic water bottles. 12,000 plastic waster bottles filled with carbon dioxide.
Apparently the carbon dioxide make the plastic incredibly strong. The other components of the boat are also repurposed items including a sail from recycled plastic instead of cloth and an irrigation pipe as the mast. Very, very clever. The boat launched yesterday from San Francisco on its way to Australia. The trip will take 3 months and travel approximately 11,000 miles; some of it over very treacherous water. They aren't sure if the boat will make it. The driving initiative for this project is to create more awareness and attention around the global trash problem. So, on the journey the crew plans to travel to areas in the ocean where currents have created large accumulations of garbage (predominately plastic). One of these trash clusters covers a space as large as Texas times two. That's a serious junk yard. Yuck! It will be interesting to track the progress of this boat made from reused material and plastic bottles to see how it fairs in the sea. Sorry; couldn't resist. I wish them the best and hope they are successful in both their mission to drive awareness on the magnitude of the problem of global trash as well as arriving safely in Australia.
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