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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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Plastiki to set sail into plastic sea

John Elkington · 18 January 2009 · Leave a Comment

   

One of my favourite authors as a child was Thor Heyerdahl, with The Kon-Tiki Expedition profoundly shaping the way I thought of team-building, the natural environment and internationalism.  Now David de Rothschild of Adventure Ecology is planning to set sail in the Plastiki, setting out on 28 April, the sixty-second anniversary of the start of the Kon-Tiki expedition.  The Kon-Tiki, which is now the subject of its own museum, was built of balsa wood, the laster Ra II raft of reeds.  On both, Heyerdahl could see evidence of the growing population of the oceans, because of their intimate contact with the blue face of the planet.  The Plastiki will be built of more modern materials, empty plastic bottles encased in a plastic skin.  The goal: to sail into an area of plastic debris that has accumulated between California and Hawaii, in an area of the northern Pacific gyre, an area five times the size of Britain.  According to the Sunday Times today, of the 100 million tons of plastic produced each year, fully 10 per cent ends up in the oceans.  

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Introduction

I began this blog with an entry reporting on a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, on 30 September 2003. The blog element of the website has gone through several iterations since, with much of the older material still available.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on this site’s Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

In addition, my blogs have appeared on many sites such as: Chinadialogue, CSRWire, Fast Company, GreenBiz, Guardian Sustainable Business, and the Harvard Business Review.

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About

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

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john@johnelkington.com  |  +44 203 701 7550 | Twitter: @volansjohn

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