Bottle Boat Sails to Sydney

National Geographic Emerging Explorer David de Rothschild completed his four month journey across the Pacific yesterday traveling aboard the Plastiki, a catamaran constructed from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles. Deriving the name from Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition from South America to Tahiti, this voyage was done to inspire people to reevaluate the resources they consume, particularly the one-use plastic bottles that we toss away without thinking.

“The story that 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 some more,” said de Rothschild.”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.”

After leaving from Sausalito, California, he and his crew arrived in Sydney Darling Harbour yesterday, and the boat will remain moored at the Australian National Maritime Museum for the next month, and will be open to the public for visits on Sunday, August 1. Read more about their journey at Nat Geo News Watch, and follow the path of their journey by visiting the crew’s Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and blog.

Photo: The Plastiki Flickr page