Recycling makes you feel good about yourself. Why? Because you can look around at all the other A-holes and tell yourself you care more about the environment than they do.
In truth, it doesn’t do much to save the environment, and it doesn’t stop you from sitting in traffic in your SUV with the heat or A/C cranked. But for some reason, people really get off on it. One such person is David de Rothschild (yes, of those Rothschilds), who is building a sailboat out of over 12,000 recycled plastic bottles. When the ship is built, he plans to sail it from San Fransisco to Australia, because it’s a challenge.
However, when it sinks, it will be just another example of plastic killing fish in the ocean.
I heard they can’t recycle without aborting a third-trimester baby.
Well, they probably can, but just haven’t tried.
Apparently you just don’t get it… This media stunt is only a way to get people to focus on other alternatives. How hard is it to put empty aluminum cans in the recycle bin… apparently pretty difficult since 80% of the time at the marina where we dock our boat (a sailboat) I see beer cans in the regular trash – 5 feet away from the recycle bins. With the recent fuel cost increases most of the power boats in our marina don’t go out anymore, the $80 to $100 river outing is now more like $500 in fuel. Our 36′ catamaran, which is very roomy and comfortable burns under 1/2 gallon of diesel per hour running at 8 kts, 0 gallons under sailpower (4 -12 kts depending on wind) where an equivalent power boat will burn 10+ gallons an hour to go 10+ kts – you do the math. I drive a hybrid SUV that gets 30+ mpg on my 60 mi round trip commute (40 minutes by car 2.5 hrs by public transportation). It’s not changing the world but the emissions that go into the atmosphere are much less than if I ran big power boat and drove a Hummer. Plus by making the investment in more environmant friendly product more R&D will go in that direction. From your comments I guess you are just one more of the small picture folks who figure “why drive a hybrid the extra cost doesn’t equal out to the fuel savings”. Beside gas is cheap again, tell that to your kid with asthma. You’ve probably never even seen a gill net.
Wow, buddy. You are either very jealous. or you just have a problem in your life!
I don’t know if you have ever seen how hard it is to produce aluminum from aluminum ore, but any metal production from energy is one of the most energy intensive processes we know. Recycling a can actually saves 5 cents of energy over making that same can again from raw materials. If everyone in America recycled one can a day, millions of dollars in energy are being saved everyday.
Seriously? Any attempt to make people rethink, refocus, and research other alternatives is an attempt worth our appluase not our pesimistic blogsphere. Seriously guy, get serious.
It is rediculous for this person to disregard the good that can come from informing people of the real benefits of recycling. Everyone needs to pitch in to lesson our dependance on fossil fuels. The more attention this adventure gets the more people will think about the importance of protecting our increasingly fragile environment.
To the author of this article. It is precisely your cynical attitude that has held the world back from embracing recycling as a consumer choice and pursuing alternative energy sources for so long. Thankfully it appears that none of your readers share your pessimistic and poorly informed views. Your children will be very proud.
Unless the Plastiki contains no PVC or PBA the boat is not enviormentally safe for the water. I would be very interested in to know if it is free of these chemicals. Although I do realize the benefits of recycling and recycle myself it is just as important to rid all plastic bottles of these chemicals. By doing so would be a great benefit to the health of all people. The people who drink from plastic containers contaning these chemicals.
talk about recycling – this stupid post is just recycled talking points disguised as sardonic humor. fail.
So what is the lesson here, that if you save up thousands of plastic bottles you too can have a sailboat? How does that change the game at all?
I hope the boat is going to be recycled into bottles again after its voyage. Otherwise that’s just wasteful.
McBournie,
Sell the SUV, get a hybrid; open the windows and skip the AC; most of all, try being part of the solution instead of part of the problem. If you think you can’t improve the environment, who could disagree?
There is a big market for recycled plastic, and not just bottles. People are making money there, but have a problem in that not enough of the plastic is collected so it can be recycled.
Seriously.
You know what’s ridiculous? Spelling the word “ridiculous” with an ‘E’.
Yo Bryan, what if it doesn’t sink? And even if it does why would that kill anything?
As for recycling, it uses less energy than producing something new. If you want to get an idea as to how much we all waste check out Chris Jordan’s work at http://www.chrisjordan.com/
So recycling may not solve our problems but it sure as hell won’t hurt.
Cheers,
Fred Magyar
P.S. my kayak is made of polyethylene (which is highly recyclable) and I often paddle it out to my local coral reefs and scuba dive off of it. When it wears out I fully intend to recycle it, hope you don’t mind.
President http://www.kayuba.org
I don’t know what’s funnier, the fact that we have this many environmental readers, or the fact that they think Bryan drives a SUV.
I think one of his major points it that these disposable plastic bottles, which we use for a few minutes and then toss (even if we do recycle them) are FAR FROM DISPOSABLE. They are so durable you can fill them with dry ice, drive an SUV over them, and they won’t break. They are so durable you can sail across the seas on them without them breaking down. If the boat has troubles you can bet it won’t be b/c the bottles deteriorate!
Which is why they are such a problem. We toss them away, but they don’t go away. Ever. We either need to move toward degradable disposables. Or, better yet, start treating them as the ‘durables’ they are find ways/create systems so we don’t have to toss them after one use.