I just finished a 20 oz bottle of diet Coke and was about to toss the bottle into the recycling bin when I remembered about some guy who was building his own floating island out of empty plastic bottles.  I had seen a little blurb about him on TV a couple of years ago, had quickly forgotten the details, and had tried since several times to track down his endeavor by internet searches—with no luck. 

But today I typed “floating island of bottles” into Google and got abundant results.  It seems that the island has grown and that interest in it has grown also.  A handful of blogs were referencing it, but the best article was this one from the Sun. (More photos are available here)

A BRITISH carpenter who dreamed of living on a private sunshine isle built himself one using 250,000 plastic bottles.

Richie Sowa spent four years making the floating Spiral Island, which measures 66ft by 54ft, weighs 60 tons and has three sandy beaches.

The mangrove-covered paradise, which is anchored off the coast of Mexico, includes a two-bedroom house with a large living room and kitchen.

The walls are made from palm trees and the roof is plastic sheeting.

Richie hopes to make the island totally self-sustainable and is growing food including tomatoes.

Now it appears that a movie is being made about him and his adventure.  I bet that after the movie gets released, if it’s a hit, that a fad of building similar floating islands takes hold and that ‘floating island kits’ (including empty plastic bottles) become commercially available.

 The ultimate dream: make the island storm-worthy (largely by making it larger), make it self-mobile (turn it into a ‘ship’), and take it out to sea!  Hey, out in international waters, you’d become your own micro-nation!

aLRIGHT nOw everybody: start sending all your empty plastic bottles to me!!