Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Plastiki

Plastiki! When you first hear the word, 'Plastiki', you might think that it is related to something made of plastics which is true. Plastiki is a boat made of plastic bottles but don't say WHAT?! because only the bottom part of the boat is made of plastic bottles. The main purpose of creating this boat is to show that we shouldn't waste but recycle lots of things to save our earth. The person who had this idea called 'David de Rothchild' and other five crews have to start from San Francisco and sail to California to Sydney, Australia. There are lots of interesting and important gears in Plastiki but I will only show three things I found really interesting.
The first purpose of Plastiki is to raise awareness about plastic waste. Plastiki is a boat made of about as many as 12000 PET soda bottles which are used keep it afloat. To make sure that the bottles are strong, mechanisms had a 'PET Stress Tests.' To get the right result, you have to do it two times. The Breaking Point in the first trial was 6 tons. The second breaking point was 4 tons. So the average breaking point was from 4 to 6 tons.
There is a thing called, 'Desalinator' in Plastiki. It has an ability to process 6 litres of water every half hour. The amount of sunlight, hand pump and some people's power are the only things needed to make drinkable water.
There was one gear that surprised me. It was an Energy Bike. At first I thought, 'Why is there a bike on the boat?' But then later, I realized that this one is a great thing to save earth. The catamarans navigation and communication systems all need electricity. However, electricity generation is a big issue so they created an Energy Bike and it has extra benefits. It can make 0.4 kilowatt with an hour pedalling!!!
I never thought Plastiki would do these things and I was really fascinated. It has all high technique and good-looking gears which makes to want to have my own 'Plastiki' boat.

Vocab #10

1. Primitive
2. Godsend
3. Melancholy
4. Ambivalent
5. Impeccable
6. Probation
7. Despicable

8. Beckoning

9. Melodramatic