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.