Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there

This has been a public service announcement from your friends at gCaptain. (Via AWB)

UPDATE: July 26, 2010 – gCaptain first reported on the Plastitki, a 60-foot catamaran made out of 2-liter soda bottles, over a year ago and we are now happy to report that the Plastiki has completed its 11,000 mile voyage from San Francisco to Sydney. theplastiki.com tells us about their arrivel in Sydney.

The Plastiki crew were met by a welcome flotilla of boats and hellicopters as they sailed through Sydney habour on their way to Sydney’s Australian National Maritime Museum where the arrival ceremony was held in front of a bustling audience of friends, families, press and supporters. Huge thanks to everyone who made it down and tracked our arrival online, you can share any of your photos through our Facebook page.

So this is a little bit more complex than building a boat out of popsicle sticks, but after all, it’s going to eventually be sailed over 11,000 miles on the open ocean.

According to CNN, the ambitious eco-adventurer De Rothschild is currently in the process of collecting and constructing a boat made almost entirely out of plastic PET bottles. In April, Rothschild plans to sail his boat, called the Plastiki, from San Francisco to Sydney.

The Plastiki is a 60-foot catamaran will be made up of an estimated 12,000 to 16,000 2-liter soda bottles, stripped of their labels, washed, filled with dry-ice powder and then resealed. The dry ice sublimates into carbon dioxide gas and pressurizes the bottle, making it rigid.  Additionally, two wind turbines and an array of solar panels will charge a bank of 12-volt batteries, which will power several onboard laptop computers, a GPS and SAT phone.  When it’s all finished, the Plastiki will be 90% recylced material.

De Rothschild hopes his creation, now being built on a San Francisco pier, will boost recycling of plastic bottles, encourage people to embrace clean, renewable energy and help people see that consumer waste can be a potential resource.

“The idea is to put no kind of pollution back into the atmosphere, or into our oceans for that matter, so everything on the boat will be composted. Everything will be recycled. Even the vessel is going to end up being recycled when we finish,” he told CNN.

Check out this video for more on the Plastiki’s construction:

Source: CNN

Come aboard as the VBS crew takes a cruise to the Northern Gyre in the Pacific Ocean, a spot where currents spin and cycle, churning up tons of plastic into a giant pool of chemical soup, flecked with bits and whole chunks of refuse that cannot biodegrade.

Bitterend found this great image of so called “Rubbish Soup”. They tell us;

“The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world’s largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting “soup” stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.” “The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.”

Click the image for the full sized version, click HERE for an alternate version then view the related article HERE.

Thanks Richard!