Gill appointed official offshore clothing supplier for project Plastiki

Posted on 11/12/2009

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Gill appointed official offshore clothing supplier for project Plastiki

In early 2010, David de Rothschild and his intrepid crew, including internationally renowned skipper Jo Royle, are to set sail on an ocean adventure of unrivalled proportions taking them over 11,000 nautical miles across the Pacific in a boat made almost entirely from plastic bottles. Through navigating these vast and volatile waters, the Plastiki is on a mission to beat waste.

The Plastiki is no ordinary vessel. The twist? It has been created almost entirely from reclaimed plastic water and soda bottles and self-reinforced PET, a uniquely recyclable and relatively unexplored material, and one which has never been used to make anything like a boat before. This distinctive, one-of-a-kind construction will not only set the stage for a historic expedition, but it will also allow Adventure Ecology and its crew to deliver a spectacular global “Message in a Bottle.” David de Rothschild and his team of experts began their adventure three years ago with a shared vision to create a seaworthy boat that would not only be visually engaging, with all the bottles in their original form, but would also epitomize waste being used as a resource. The whole build process, from its inception to the day Adventure Ecology started working on the construction of the vessel, has generated opportunity for tremendous discovery and innovation. The result? The Plastiki will showcase smart and innovative design principles with the ambition to demonstrate responsible and industry changing solutions not only to the marine industry, but to a global community at large. The Plastiki will set sail from the United States of America under the shadow of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The crew will navigate more than 100 days of endless blue horizons via a number of ecologically threatened regions, finally finishing their voyage in Australia’s world-famous Sydney harbor. During this epic ocean voyage, the Plastiki will sail through some of our ocean’s most remote and fragile ecosystems, witnessing and sharing the overwhelming effects of global warming and waste on ecosystems and our planet’s inhabitants. Supported by Adventure Ecology’s network of global supporters and institutions, the Plastiki aims to use the expedition to heighten worldwide consciousness of the extreme challenges that our oceans and their inhabitants face due to excessive plastic pollution, over-fishing and a rapidly changing climate. The goal of Adventure Ecology’s Plastiki is not only to encourage the world to reduce, reuse and recycle more of its natural resources, but fundamentally to re-think waste as a resource by driving innovative real world solutions. It is such a re-think that will ultimately help to promote and provide stepping-stones for individuals, industry and businesses to move towards a smarter, more sustainable ‘Planet 2.0’ way of living. A lasting legacy of the Plastiki will be its capacity to shift public thinking and perception from plastic as the enemy to plastic becoming part of the solution. The Plastiki clearly demonstrates -- in its philosophical underpinnings and in practice -- that the list of solutions available is far greater than the list of problems. To solve the plastic pollution and waste issues at large will require a re-think of how we currently use, reuse and ultimately dispose of plastics and waste products. Perfectly suited to withstand the rigours of an ocean crossing, the Plastiki crew has opted to wear Gill’s ultimate offshore waterproof The OC Racer.