The Plastiki is a 60 feet (18.3 m) catamaran

Catamaran

A catamaran is a type of multihulled boat or ship consisting of two hulls, or vakas, joined by some structure, the most basic being a frame, formed of akas...

 made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

 PET

Polyethylene terephthalate

Polyethylene terephthalate , commonly abbreviated PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P, is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibers; beverage, food and other liquid containers; thermoforming applications; and engineering resins often in combination...

 plastic and waste products. The craft was built using cradle to cradle design philosophies and features many renewable energy systems, including solar panels, wind

Wind turbine

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...

 and trailing propeller turbines, and bicycle generators. The frame was designed by Australian naval architect Andrew Dovell. The boat's name is a play on the 1947 Kon-Tiki

Kon-Tiki

Kon-Tiki was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name...

raft used to sail across the Pacific by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...

, and its voyage roughly followed the same route.
On March 20, 2010, the sailing vessel set off from San Francisco, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 to cross the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 with a crew of six: British skipper Jo Royle, co-skipper David Thompson, expedition diver Olav Heyerdahl, filmmakers Max Jourdan and Vern Moen, and expedition leader David de Rothschild

David Mayer de Rothschild

David Mayer de Rothschild is a British adventurer, ecologist, and environmentalist and head of Adventure Ecology, an expedition group raising awareness about climate change. He is a member of the Rothschild family, the youngest of three children of Victoria Schott and Sir Evelyn de Rothschild of...

. The expedition projected landfall in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and included plans to visit several sites en route of ecological importance or which were susceptible to environmental issue

Environmental issue

Environmental issues are negative aspects of human activity on the biophysical environment. Environmentalism, a social and environmental movement that started in the 1960s, addresses environmental issues through advocacy, education and activism.-Types:...

s caused by global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

, for instance the current sea level rise

Current sea level rise

Current sea level rise potentially impacts human populations and the wider natural environment . Global average sea level rose at an average rate of around 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003 and at an average rate of about 3.1 mm per year from 1993 to 2003...

, ocean acidification

Ocean acidification

Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH and increase in acidity of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere....

 and marine pollution

Marine pollution

Marine pollution occurs when harmful, or potentially harmful effects, can result from the entry into the ocean of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste, noise, or the spread of invasive organisms. Most sources of marine pollution are land based...

.

Plastiki arrived in Sydney Harbour on July 26, 2010, accompanied by a small flotilla of boats. Shortly afterwards, it was towed to the Australian National Maritime Museum

Australian National Maritime Museum

The Australian National Maritime Museum is a federally-operated maritime museum located in Darling Harbour, Sydney. After consideration of the idea to establish a maritime museum, the Federal government announced that a national maritime museum would be constructed at Darling Harbour, tied into...

 in Darling Harbour, where it was on display until late August.

See also

• Nice Collective
  Nice Collective
  Nice Collective is a San Francisco-based designer clothing brand founded in 1997. Dance music veterans Joe Haller and Ian Hannula took the silhouettes, energy and attitude of the streetwear they themselves wore and loved and combined these with better fabrics and quality construction...
  
  
• JUNK raft
  Junk raft
  A junk raft is a type of home-built watercraft made of plastic bottles or other recycled materials constructed by and for three different sorts of audiences: artists and community-minded groups organizing recreational flotillas; environmentally concerned individuals seeking to draw attention to the...
  
  
• Project Kaisei
  Project Kaisei
  Project Kaisei is a scientific and commercial mission to study and clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large body of floating debris trapped in the Pacific Ocean by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. Discovered by NOAA, the patch is estimated to contain 20 times the density of...
  
  
• Great Pacific Garbage Patch
  Great Pacific Garbage Patch
  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N...
  
  

External links

• CNN special coverage page
• "Adventurer's bottle boat to sail plastic sea". Times Online. Retrieved on 2009-01-18.
• Here On Earth: Radio Without Borders, April 20, 2009
• Sundance Channel: ECO TRIP - About David de Rothschild
• John Colapinto, “Message In a Bottle,” The New Yorker, April 6, 2009
• Plastic Boat: The Building of a High-Tech Eco-Stunt, Wired, Nov. 16, 2009
• "Boat made of plastic bottles sets sail across Pacific" BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
   21 March 2010
• National Geographic Adventure blog
• Plastiki Sails Into Sydney - slideshow by Life magazine
• L2 Industries - Materials, engineering, and production of the vessel
• Seretex - The material of The Plastiki