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Plastic Bottle Sailboat Completes Pacific Crossing

   VOA News 26 July 2010
   David  de  Rothschild,  skipper  of  the  Plastiki, a boat made out of
   12,500  recycled  plastic bottles, is greeted as he arrives in Sydney,
   26 Jul 2010

Photo: AP

   David  de  Rothschild,  skipper  of  the  Plastiki, a boat made out of
   12,500  recycled  plastic bottles, is greeted as he arrives in Sydney,
   four  months  after  the  ship set out from San Francisco on a journey
   across  the Pacific Ocean meant to raise awareness about the perils of
   plastic waste, 26 Jul 2010

   A  sailboat  made  almost entirely from plastic bottles has arrived in
   Australia,  ending  a  four-month  voyage  across the Pacific Ocean to
   highlight the importance of recycling.

   U.S.  Ambassador  Jeffrey Bleich was with 100 excited well-wishers who
   met  the  vessel when it docked Monday in Sydney. He hailed the voyage
   as "a journey from trash to triumph."

   David  de  Rothschild,  a  member of the British banking family, led a
   crew  of  six  through fierce storms on the 15,000-kilometer trip from
   San  Francisco.  He said he conceived the plan after reading about the
   threat posed by discarded plastic to the world's oceans.

   The vessel was made entirely of waste materials, mainly 12,500 plastic
   bottles.  The  18-meter  catamaran  was named Plastiki in a tribute to
   Thor Heyerdah's 1947 Pacific crossing on a raft named Kon-Tiki.

   Even  the  ship's sails were made from recycled plastic. The glue used
   to  hold the bottles together was made from cashew nut husks and sugar
   cane.

   The crew relied for power on solar panels, wind and propeller turbines
   and bicycle-powered generators.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

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