Jul 26Plastiki Fantastiki: Their Voyage is Over, but the Journey Continues for David de Rothschild
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We sent down our man in the field today to the arrival of Plastiki in Darling Harbour.
The crew of Plastiki has had, what seems like, an impossible journey. Essentially floating across the Pacific Ocean on a pile of plastic bottles in 128 days with one goal, “To ban single use plastics”. Their boat was made of 12,500 plastic bottles to be precise, all stuck together with glue made of cashew nuts and sugarcane. Incidentally, Plastiki was designed by Australian ‘Sydney to Hobart’ winning designer, Andy Duvall.
This boat embodied their core message and the journey from San Francisco to Sydney a plea for help from a green island.
After having a drink of water, the man behind it all David de Rothschild said, “Anything is possible if you realise what you can do” in an effort to encourage people to find their own ways of reducing their dependence on plastic. As he stepped off he said. “I wish I was standing here saying we’ve solved the problem, but we haven’t”.
Ian Kiernan, the founder of Clean Up Australia revealed that there is approximately 13,000 pieces of plastic in every square kilometre in the Pacific Ocean. “This opens your eyes to a problem you can’t see" he continued, “We have an innate ability to invent things for our own convenience" often with a complete disregard for the repercussions to our environment.
As the Plastiki crew were being welcomed into Darling Harbour, The U.S. Ambassador reminded us to "Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people to change the world". So committed indeed that one of the crew undertook this journey during the birth of his first child.
David de Rothschild emphasised that it does not take one person to change how we use plastic because "Nobody is as smart as ‘Everybody’…" and the Plastiki was "The greatest exercise of teamwork" from the industrial designers, the glue makers to the bottle collectors, the expedition would not have been possible without the dedication of the team.
David’s vision is aimed at challenging the "that’s just how we do it" mentality, because our society has become to accustomed to just using things once and throwing them away.
The fact is that nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. The biggest problems are Plastic bottles, bottle lids, plastic bags and Styrofoam because they photodegrade (break into smaller bits of plastic) into the WATER and are ingested by animals. This became even more apparent when several plastic bottles floated by while we were waiting for Plastiki to arrive.
After years of trying to clean up our harbour, Ian Kiernan said, "We need to put yesterday’s habits behind us", there has to be a better way.
Following the lead of groundbreaking town Bundanoon, other local councils are seeking to ban the sale of bottled water in an effort to reduce the plastic suffocating our Oceans.
Circul8 team
