Sailing on a bottle boat

31-year-old David de Rothschild, heir to the banking dynasty, is about to sail a catamaran made of plastic bottles from San Francisco to Sydney. Here, he explains how and why this crazy adventure came about.

I have always been fascinated first and foremost by health and the concept that you are what you eat, you are what you breathe, which took me down the path of organics and understanding the environment that way. I naturally became more curious about the environment as a whole and the ‘green space’ surrounding us, but when I started looking around for more information I found it all to be a bit aggressive and guilt mongering.

It was then during an expedition across the Antarctica in 2004 that it dawned on me how adventure can be utilised to create an alternative and accessible information platform on the environment and act as a catalyst for change.

The key education ethos of Adventure Ecology [the company De Rothschild founded] is a combination of education and entertainment (edutainment); it is about making learning an adventure. Through undertaking unique expeditions to some of the world’s most dangerous, exciting and environmentally challenged regions we aim to not only call attention to humanities impact on our Earth’s most remote and fragile ecosystems but also help to articulate and promote a better understanding and respect for some of the most pressing ecological issues of our time.

In June 2006 I read a report issued by UNEP called ‘Action Urged to Avoid Deep Trouble in the Deep Seas’ which alerted me to the fundamental issues facing our oceans. I felt I had to do something. True to Adventure Ecology’s values I wanted to create a compelling and pioneering adventure that would not only be informative but would capture the imagination of a global audience and empower them to act more responsibly towards our planet.

One of the inspirations behind the Plastiki adventure was Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 expedition, The Kon-Tiki, which saw Heyerdahl and five like-minded adventurers travelling to Peru where they built a replica of an ancient Inca raft from balsa wood and other native materials and sailed it across the Pacific to test his theories on early Peruvian settlements. By putting his theories into practice in such an audacious and bold way Heyerdahl was able to raise phenomenal awareness and educate generations of people, which is what we hope to achieve with the Plastiki but within the context of the environment and the world’s oceans, highlighting the growing impact we are having on our most remote and fragile ecosystems.

By undertaking the Plastiki expedition over about three months, through thousands upon thousands of miles of unpredictable, challenging and volatile waters that make up the vast Pacific Ocean we are on a mission to beat waste.

The goal of the expedition is to not only continue encouraging the world to focus on reducing, reusing and recycling more of its natural resources but ultimately to think smart by re-thinking waste as a resource.

It is such re-think that will ultimately help to promote and provide stepping-stones towards the type of thinking that will lead individuals, business and industry alike to start living within the equilibrium that our natural world craves.

When you think that plastic accounts for approximately 90 percent of all debris floating in the oceans it seemed fitting that the expedition focus on the most thrown away and, what I believe to be, the most iconic indictment of the devastating effects of waste in our oceans that we all have everyday contact with. For me, the plastic bottle epitomises in every aspect the absurdity of our throwaway society, there is some 2.7 million tons of plastic used to bottle water each year, with figures showing that in the US alone the annual sum spent is nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water.

In bottle production alone, more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. and 1.5 million barrels of oil is used over the course of one year, resulting in about 22 billion empty plastic bottles being trashed. It’s something that, when you dig a little deeper into it, you realise that the facts just don’t add up, for example, it takes between three to five litres of water to make a one litre bottle of water and, then you need to include the energy needed for transportation, just to produce something that ultimately ends up in the ground. When you think that plastic bottles are 100 percent recyclable and yet only 20 percent are actually recycled, there is a lot of work to be done on that area.

A lasting legacy of the Plastiki will be its capacity to shift public thinking and perception from plastics as the enemy to how plastic can become part of the solution. The Plastiki clearly demonstrates throughout its philosophies and in practice that the list of solutions available is far greater than the list of problems. To solve the marine debris and waste issues at large will require a re-think of how we currently use, reuse and ultimately dispose of plastics.

Our first major hurdle was how we keep the integrity of the bottles so it wasn’t simply the case of melting down the plastic as the actual visible presence of bottles has been at the core of everything. Without the bottles, the boat would sink.

I have been lucky enough to work alongside some of the world leading institutions, engineers, designers, marine architects and sustainability experts on the build. I first approached Michael Pawlyn, who is renowned for his nature-inspired concepts, with the initial design concept. I wanted to create a boat that would not only be visually iconic with all bottles in their original form but would also have the ability to perform in the water.

I have also worked closely with naval architect Andy Dovell, who has translated the initial design into a pioneering 60-foot catamaran.

We are going to have a unique solar installation on board which will not only generate power and create shade during the expedition but also function post-application as a solar powered educational pod. I want to keep a few surprises back but let’s just say there will be an element of human composting involved.

We wanted to raise awareness on the challenges our oceans and its inhabitants face by creating an expedition that reaches across the whole of the Pacific from San Francisco Bay to Sydney Harbour.

This expedition will give us a platform to explore and highlight a number of the issues facing different areas of the Pacific including the sinking islands of Tuvalu, the effects of mass pollution due to sub-water testing of nuclear armament and coral bleaching, as well as using it to tell positive stories about communities who are learning alternative ways of creating income now that the fisheries have been closed due to over-fishing and showing cases of coral rejuvenation.

We will be taking daily scientific readings including wind directions, water temperature and water samples as well as shooting lots of underwater photography and footage, which will hopefully not only provide valuable measured data on environmental trends but also chart and create a story across the Pacific.

We are planning to grow a variety of sprouts and hydroponics, herbs and quick-growing, salt tolerant edibles on board to create a sustainable portion of the food for the expedition. This will only substitute a small percentage of the total stores, but will add a lot in both nutrition and flavour. We will also be carrying fishing equipment to supplement our diet.

I think what’s interesting is that waste and trash, and the way it’s viewed and disposed of, tends to sit differently within the Western culture in comparison to other parts of the world. By this I mean that there is almost an inherent recycling culture outside the West, a sense of responsibility to re-use because waste is fundamentally a resource, either for financial gain or simply because the materials are re-usable.

I think that the most important thing is not to make plastic the enemy but really re-asses how we use, dispose and re-use it.

From the outset the ambition was always to let the community decide on what to up-cycle the entire vessel into. However, as the build has developed, not only have the team become very emotionally attached to her, but it may be a much bigger catalyst for the ongoing message if the Plastiki stays in one piece.

I hope that Adventure Ecology through expedition and exploration to fragile areas not only makes learning on out of sight and out mind issues an adventure, but also shows a more positive, optimistic and smarter approach to the solutions that are available.