David de Rothschild: Voyage of the Plastiki Message in a Bottle—Reconsidering Plastic

One thing I find interesting about waste and trash is the way it’s viewed and disposed of tends to sit differently within Western culture than other parts of the world. Outside of the West, there is almost an inherent recycling culture and sense of responsibility to reuse because waste is fundamentally a resource, either for financial gain or simply because the materials are reusable.

I think that the most important thing is not to make plastic the enemy, but to really reassess how we use, dispose, and reuse it. It comes down to the old cliché of stopping to think before you buy. Can you reuse the bottle that contained the water or soda you drank earlier? The small things can make a big difference. We can all minimize our impact if we fundamentally change the way in which we consume. Certain absurdities—like wrapping perishable vegetables in something that can last five hundred years in the ground—just don’t make any sense. We need to go full cycle, and go back to targeting packaging—either minimizing it or getting rid of it entirely—where it is just not necessary. The biggest change we can make is to rethink our buying habits and create more demand for positive change.

David de Rothschild, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and founder of Adventure Ecology, will depart in March 2009 on a 7,500-mile voyage from San Francisco to Sydney (see the route map) in a boat made of plastic bottles. Find out more about the expedition in a feature article by Contributing Editor Paul Kvinta ("Voyage of the Plastiki," October 2008 issue of ADVENTURE). Check in here for de Rothschild's dispatches.

Comments

[Need Help]

Now that you grown you understand what the meaning of "don`t burn the plastic on the fire", indeed, now everyone became green, as it should have ages ago.

[רופא שיניים]

I think it's important to make the plastic, but to really see how to use, dispose of and recycle.

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We should not only think that there is recycling to fix the accumulated plastics we have. Reducing is better than recycling.

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[VimaX]

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[VimaX]

The article is worth while reading, I like it very much and which you shared the info in this post is very useful. Thanks for sharing a wonderful post.

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If we are concerned about our environment then we should act now: I think recycling is one of the solutions on how to minimize our garbage or trash disposal. It's is cited on the article that we need to think first before buying any plastic containers which is good though. Thanks for sharing!

[Shredding San Antonio]

Indeed, we should rethink and reconsider things when it comes to buying products from any store. The key is not really recycling for it does not really lessen the plastic and the other wastes we have right now. It is important to reduce plastic by having other alternatives. We should not only think that there is recycling to fix the accumulated plastics we have. Reducing is better than recycling.

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[Traveller]

I agree, SouthEast Asia has a massive problem recycling, particularly with plastic bottles which lie on sidewalks and dumped outside of towns too.

[YHA Man]

You should check out Thailand if you want to see what plastic waste looks like!