DLSU student designs boat made of plastic bottles
Our project's feature on GMA News
DLSU student designs boat made of plastic bottles | 24 Oras
GMA News feature in YT with more than 150k views already!
This Plastic-Bottle Boat Can Take Four People Out to the Sea
Our project's feature article from SPOT.ph
This Plastic-Bottle Boat Can Take Four People Out to the Sea
Our project's feature on TheWorldNews.net
Our project's feature on the daily news of PTV Ylocos with over 20k views already!
Tons of plastic are being thrown away everyday and aren't being recycled. Also, of all the waste in the ocean, 80% are plastics (IUCN, 2021). With this, we came up with a boat made out of recycled materials.
It is a boat made from 319 pieces of 1.5L recycled PET plastic bottles with a bamboo frame. It can fit 3-4 people in getting from point a to point b, and its buoyancy can accommodate up to 600kg.
maximum weight test
wave test
The plastic bottles were arranged in a way to make the boat have minimal hydrodynamic drag and move freely along the water. A uniform size of the bottles (1.5L) also ensured a better balance of the boat. Recycled rubber from used bike tires were used to connect the bamboo frame and a recycled net was used to contain the bottles inside the boat.
It was designed by our founder, Adem Inovejas, with the main inspiration of giving used plastic bottles another purpose. The actual build of the boat was made by the “Boys of Pacis” lead by Jaymar Reyes.
It was modeled from Sungai Watch and Madiba & Nature's plastic bottle boats, only with some modifications. The building process is similar to how “bahay kubo” is built.
Halfway through the build
Kids even wanted to volunteer!
After the concept of using plastic bottles as a buoyancy material, the project can be scaled up. It is mainly a project started for coastal communities and local fisherfolk to turn waste into something useful. Essentially we believe that this project is like hitting three birds with one stone: first, trash in the community will be reduced; second, there would be education on recycling and trash segregation in the Barangay level; third, an additional boat will be available for the Barangay to use for emergencies or fishing.