Plastic Odyssey from Summer 2018 Challenge Magazine
Plastic Odyssey
A group of young French engineers set themselves the challenge of creating a boat that could be powered by pyrolysis of waste plastic. The prototype had its maiden voyage in mid-June.
Their ambition is to democratise this still expensive technology as well as drawing attention to the huge volumes of plastic in our oceans.
The prototype catamaran is six metres in length. The full scale model they hope to build next will be 25 metres long.
They plan to launch a circumnavigation of the globe in Plastic Odyssey II in March 2020.
The expedition will visit developing nations around the planet, providing open-source lo-tech anti-pollution workshops wherever they go.
With only 1% of ocean plastic floating on the surface, their mission is to add to our understanding of what is happening to the other 99% and to help developing nations see waste plastics as a valuable resource in order to encourage recycling.
