From a glass bottle chandelier to a plastic bottle chandelier:
This chandelier is made from 1,044 plastic bottles: a world –record and is designed and built by Swedish group Ecostep.me:
“Every single bottle represents a sustainable action, wish or effort made by participants of ecostep.me, and by building the chandelier we want to inspire and challenge others to make a shift to a more sustainable lifestyle.”
Via: The Plastiki Blog
Plastiki, the innovative catamaran made of 12,000 plastic bottles which we first reported on back in September 2008, has now begun its ambitious 100-day journey from San Francisco to Sydney.
Lead by Brit adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild, the Plastiki and crew aim to witness some of the most devastating waste accumulation on our planet.
You can follow the expedition every step of the way:
Here’s one of the first on-board video reports:
The Plastiki Philosophy is all about recognizing that waste is a fundamental design flaw (it does not appear in nature). It’s about re-thinking waste as a resource. Hence the vessel has been built with waste – the very same plastic mass that clogs our oceans in the Pacific Garbage Patch.
It is estimated that almost all of the marine pollution in the world is comprised of plastic materials. The average proportion varied between 60% and 80% of total marine pollution.
According to Project Aware, 15 billion pounds of plastic are produced in the U.S. every year, and only 1 billion pounds are recycled. It is estimated that in excess of 38 billion plastic bottles and 25 million Styrofoam cups end up in landfill and although plastic bottles are 100% recyclable, on average only 20% are actually recycled.
Just last week the BBC reported that the UK’s coastlines are being swamped by plastic litter. Yet, in the same breath, we here of new government initiatives aimed at ‘improving infrastructure at coastal resorts, making them more attractive to visitors’. Unless the problem of plastic pollution is addressed, any of these new initiatives may well be in vain.
Do what you can now; tackle the waste issue by choosing materials that can be recycled again and again.
Ever heard of it? Somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean you’ll find it. Out of the way of most shipping vessels or sailors is a large island made almost entirely of floating plastic debris.
Thought to be twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the product of the world’s shipping fleets, which throw some 639,000 plastic containers overboard every day.
The Patch, which is more like a ‘soup’ than an actual piece of land, is expensive. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, plastic is killing a million seabirds a year, and 100,000 marine mammals and turtles.
It kills by choking throats and gullets and clogging up digestive tracts, leading to fatal constipation. Plastic is routinely found in the stomachs of dead seabirds and turtles
Is there anything we can do?
