Skipper Jo Royle and expedition leader David de Rothschild are on a boat. 

But not just any boat.  For these two are sailing (or will be sailing soon enough) from California to Australia, an 11,000-mile voyage, on a vessel made of plastic bottles.  As we mentioned last week, in our Another Green Monday, The Plastiki, a 60-foot catamaran with hulls made of a rigid plastic structure and filled with about 10,000 empty plastic bottles, is de Rothschild's attempt to, "hightlight the dangers of living in a throwaway world," and to find ways to reuse plastics.  The boat itself is fully recyclabe

"What we have to do is realign our understanding of the material," said de Rothschild, a descendant of the well-known British banking family, who founded Adventure Ecology, which stages expeditions to raise awareness of environmental issues.

If you recall, we've shared several times recently the story of Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, who has devoted a good portion of his last 10 years to studying garbage - more specifically, the immense amount of plastic that finds its way into the Pacific Ocean.

Though not related at all, the work of these two men represents a small, but hopefully growing number of people focusing on this horrible issue.  Plastic was man's miracle material, now we must hope for a miracle solution to dealing with it.

---

---