Take One Down, Pass It Around

Although 12,000 may represent a small fraction of America’s daily consumption of plastic bottles, they’ll comprise a huge part of a 60-ft catamaran under build over at Pier 31. The brainchild of adventurer David de Rothschild, Plastiki — an homage to Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki — will attempt to bring awareness to the disturbing fact that 80% of 15 billion pounds of plastic bottles go unrecycled every year in this country. The plan is to launch the boat at the end of April and sail it across the Pacific via the North Pacific Gyre, Hawaii, and Tuvalu before finishing in Sydney. We’ve been working on getting a tour of the boat and we’ll give you our impressions of the project when we do! For now check out the project’s website.