'The Plastiki' aims to stimulate a recycle rethink

by Jeni Bone on 9 Jun 2009 There is a massive garbage patch in the Pacific – the North Pacific gyre – detritus from the world’s habit of throwing rather than stowing its non-biodegradable junk. Now, one resourceful expedition will create a boat from plastic and sail it from San Francisco to Sydney to highlight a better way of using and reusing plastic.

So fascinated and repulsed is one group of researchers, an expedition is about to get underway from San Francisco that will involve sailing a plastic boat, known as 'The Plastiki', into midst of the junk vortex to draw attention to it and the blight of plastic on our environment.

The hub of the construction phase is Pier 31, in San Francisco's Embarcadero waterfront precinct, where a shed houses the foundations of a catamaran built by the 'Adventure Ecology' team.

Englishman, Matt Grey is the project manager. He says the aim of the project is to inspire people to reconsider their use of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, the material used to make water bottles which people spend $14 billion a year on, recycling just 20% of the plastic.

The Plastiki will be made out of 12,500, 2-litre 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.

'We want to use this as a platform for thinking about smart design,' Grey said, 'because there is already enough plastic in the world that we can use forever if we learn how to refashion it.'

David de Rothschild, a 31-year-old Englishman and son of the famous banking family, is the founder and creator of the project. He says The Plastiki is much more than a statement against rampant pollution.

'People are starting to feel increasingly frustrated by a bombardment of environmental issues without being given the tools for solution. The point of the expedition is to change popular thinking about how plastic can be reused and recycled.'

Interestingly, the final destination of the voyage is Sydney, where de Rothschild lived several years ago. The boat's architect is Andy Dovell, an American who has moved to Sydney, where he runs Murray Burns & Dovell, Naval Architects, built on his reputation as one of the leading designers of America's Cup boats.

The issue is urgent. Just one of the plastic rubbish heaps swirling around the Pacific currents amounts to an area about the size of France or Texas.

The plastic is breaking down into tiny particles which are ingested by small marine life and thus enter the food chain – that includes us.

The Plastiki expedition, paying homage to Thor Heyerdahls's epic crossing of the Pacific in 1947 on a raft called the Kontiki, will use a boat unlike any vessel ever built.

As the group’s website states: 'Through this audacious and bold adventure The Plastiki aims to draw attention to the rethinking of our everyday human fingerprints on the natural world and in turn capturing the world's imagination by telling a story; that of the pioneering and sustainable design process that created and built The Plastiki, to the oceans and the many challenges it and its inhabitants face.'

On its voyage, The Plastiki will sail through a number of fragile and ecologically challenged regions that include the world’s largest waste dump through to The Line Islands and Tuvalu.

The Plastiki will make just one voyage. Arriving in Sydney it will be dismantled and recycled, testament to the thesis that plastic should be reused, not disposed of and certainly not tossed into the sea. The boat will be 'upcycled', though they still haven't decided into what. That decision says the group, will be left to the Plastiki community.

Continues the Adventure Ecology mantra: 'It is our aim to captivate, inspire and activate tomorrow's environmental thinkers and doers to take positive action for our Planet and to be smart with waste, ultimately we hope to inspire people to rethink waste as a valuable resource. One person's waste could be another person's treasure.'



More at www.adventureecology.com/theplastiki