Plastic fantastic

Today is World Environment Day and billionaire eco-warrior David de Rothschild will soon sail from San Francisco to Australia in a boat made of discarded plastic bottles. Infographics journalist PATRICK CHIA reports
The New Paper 6 Jun 09;

THE world consumes 200 billion litres of bottled water per year, yet only one in five bottles is recycled.

It disturbs banking billionaire David de Rothschild, founder of Adventure Ecology. So he set out to construct a vessel of plastic bottles that will not only perform on water but will also be a showcase of smart and innovative design solutions that rethink waste as a resource.

The catamaran has been named the Plastiki, after the famous Kon-Tiki, a raft made of balsa wood that Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl used to travel across the Pacific in 1947.

The voyage is expected to cover 12,000 nautical miles over 100 days. His six crew members will be made up of three permanent sailors and rotating environmental experts.

They will sail through the world's largest waste dump in the Pacific Ocean, to highlight the problem of marine debris and pollution.

They will also collect water samples, post blogs, photographs and video clips of the area to publicise the dangers posed by plastic waste. When the journey ends, the Plastiki will be taken apart and recycled into jackets, bags or bottles.