The crew of Plastiki, a 60-foot catamaran made of 12,500 recycled plastic bottles, sailed into Australia's Sydney Harbor on Monday to complete an 8,000-mile transpacific journey many predicted would prove too difficult for the 10-person crew.
The mission, designed to raise awareness about plastic and the threat it poses to the environment, began four months ago in San Francisco.
The crew, led by environmentalist David de Rothschild, endured severe storms and sweltering heat and survived in cramped quarters like castaways aboard a boat that held up remarkably well.
Afterward, de Rothschild, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, said on the NG website:
"The story has been told to us about plastic is that it's cheap, it's valueless, it's non-toxic, it's easy to use, and don't worry about throwing it out because we can just make more.
"The reality is it's not cheap, it's not non-toxic, it's not valueless. It's valuable, it uses a lot of resources... We need to start taking a serious look at the way we produce and design every product we use in our lives."
A blog post on the Plastiki website states that the vessel's crew "were met by a welcome flotilla of boats and helicopters as they sailed through Sydney Harbor 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."
The vessel's name was inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki voyage from South America to Tahiti. Olav Heyerdahl, Thor's grandson, was a crewman aboard Plastiki.
Fans of Plastki followed the odyssey via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the photo website Flickr.
-- Pete Thomas
Image courtesy of Plastiki website
Nice to see someone else who agrees that we need to re-evaluate our use of plastics.
Posted by: Cameron Benz | Jul 26, 2010 at 06:08 PM