Adventure Ecology founder David de Rothschild is getting ready for a summertime sailing trip. He'll sail from San Francisco to Sydney in the Plastiki, a rather unusual craft:

De Rothschild has built a team he calls the Smart Collective to combat inefficient design. He brought together a group of intelligent folks who had never built a boat before to design the Plastiki....

When finished, the Plastiki will be made of 12,500 2-liter plastic bottles collected by Waste Management, will weigh 9 tons, and will have a crew of six. The Plastiki will have a composting toilet, onboard renewable energy and a garden. "People are so shocked that we're going to grow food on the boat," de Rothschild mused.

So why is he doing it? The aim of the Plastiki Expedition is "to captivate, inspire and activate tomorrow's environmental thinkers and doers to take positive action for our Planet and to be smart with waste. Ultimately we hope to inspire people to rethink waste as a valuable resource."

You can follow the Plastiki Expedition here, and read Reuters coverage of it here. Lastly, here's a video describing the project: