The Plastiki looks similar to many other boats in Sydney harbour. It’s eighteen metres long, six metres wide and it weighs about twelve thousand kilogrammes. It carries a crew of six people and has an average speed of five knots. However, once you get near to the Plastiki you realise there’s a big difference. It’s made of twelve thousand five hundred re-used plastic bottles. David de Rothschild is an environmentalist who has crossed Antarctica and explored the Ecuadorian Amazon. One day he was ...

The Plastiki looks similar to many other boats in Sydney harbour. It’s eighteen metres long, six metres wide and it weighs about twelve thousand kilogrammes. It carries a crew of six people and has an average speed of five knots. However, once you get near to the Plastiki you realise there’s a big difference. It’s made of twelve thousand five hundred re-used plastic bottles.

David de Rothschild is an environmentalist who has crossed Antarctica and explored the Ecuadorian Amazon. One day he was reading some information about all the plastic in the seas and oceans. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. For example, humans throw away four out of every five plastic bottles they use, and plastic rubbish causes about eighty per cent of the pollution in the sea. In addition, scientists think that around one million seabirds die every year from plastic pollution. De Rothschild decided he wanted to help fight pollution in the sea. To help more people understand the problem, he started building a boat made of plastic bottles.

As well as building the boat with recycled plastic, it was important for him to make the boat environmentally friendly and user-friendly. The boat uses renewable energy such as wind power and solar energy. The crew can make meals with vegetables from the small garden at the back of the boat. They can take a break from work and get some exercise by using the special exercise bicycle. The energy from the bike provides power for the boat’s computers. And if anyone needs to take a shower, the boat’s shower uses saltwater from the sea.

(Adapted from Life by John Hughes, Helen Stephenson and Paul Dummett)