Trash day in Sydney: Recycled Plastiki completes 8,300-mile eco-voyage
It’s easy to root for Plastiki, the plucky plastic catamaran made from thousands of recycled bottles, which arrived Monday in Australia, sailing past the Sydney Opera House, after finishing its mission to draw attention to all the swirling plastic polluting our oceans. The vessel had set out in March from San Francisco to tour the enormous marine trash circle known as the “great Pacific garbage patch,” according to media reports. (My favorite headline was from the Toronto Globe and Mail: “Plastiki a Message in 12,500 Bottles.”)
The eco-boat made it to Australia with a mostly British six-member crew led by banking heir David de Rothschild, who will display the vessel and speak Wednesday night at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. The 8,300-mile journey was inspired in part by the Kon-Tiki, the raft that Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific in 1947 as part of his research on Polynesian migration routes.
The Plastiki crew, which varied during the journey, included documentary filmmaker Vern Moen of Long Beach; a group from National Geographic that also filmed the sailing; and expedition diver Olav Heyerdahl, a civil engineer and grandson of Thor Heyerdahl.
You can visit Plastiki’s website to track every aspect of this journey, from the design feat that kept the Plastiki afloat to videos of Pacific storms that the crew encountered.
—Mary Forgione, Los Angeles Times Daily Travel & Deal blogger
Photo (top):
The Plastiki catamaran sails into Sydney Harbor. Credit: www.plastiki.com
Photo (bottom): Skipper Jo Royle, left, and David de Rothschild arrive in Australia on Monday. Credit: www.plastiki.com
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