Refleksi : Untuk melihat video footage, click situs di bawah ini :
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/07/2010726105930921640.html
Monday, July 26, 2010
14:55 Mecca time, 11:55 GMT
Plastic bottle boat docks in Sydney
A yacht constructed from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles has docked in Sydney,
Australia after four months crossing the Pacific Ocean.
The ocean journey, which ended on Monday, was organised to raise awareness
about the perils of waste plastic.
A crowd of around 100 well-wishers erupted into cheers as David de Rothschild,
the expedition leader, and his crew finally docked at port outside the
Australian National Maritime Museum.
De Rothschild, a descendant of the well-known British banking family, exchanged
high fives and hugs with his crew, pumping his fists into the air in victory.
Speaking to the media, de Rothschild said he hoped the Plastiki would
highlight, in an enlightened way, the growing problem of plastic in the world's
oceans.
"It doesn't need to be po-faced, it doesn't need to be a chore. It can actually
turn out to be a great adventure and that's hopefully what the Plastiki has
done," he said.
Plastic threat
De Rothschild, 31, said the idea for the journey came to him after he read a
United Nations report in 2006 that said pollution, and particularly plastic
waste, was seriously threatening the world's oceans.
He decided a good way to prove that rubbish can be effectively reused was to
recycle some of it to construct a boat.
The boat is almost entirely made up of bottles, which are held together with an
organic glue made of sugar cane and cashews, and includes other materials too.
The mast, for instance, is recycled aluminium irrigation pipe.
The Plastiki, named after the 1947 Kon-Tiki raft sailed across the Pacific by
explorer Thor Heyerdahl, is fully recyclable and gets its power from solar
panels and windmills.
The crew of the Plastiki, an 18-metre catamaran that weathered fierce ocean
storms during its 12,000km at sea, left San Francisco, California on March 20,
stopping along the way at various South Pacific island nations including
Kiribati and Samoa.
During their 128-day journey, the six-member crew lived in a cabin of just 6m
by 4.5m, took saltwater showers, and survived on a diet of dehydrated and
canned food, supplemented with the occasional vegetable from their small
on-board garden.
Along the way, they fought giant ocean swells, 62-knot winds, temperatures up
to 38 degrees Celsius and torn sails.
Although the team had originally hoped to recycle the Plastiki, de Rothschild
said they are now thinking of keeping it intact, and using it as a way of
enlightening people to the power of recycling.
