Good luck to the explorer, environmentalist, and British aristocrat David de Rothschild who will set out on a 11,000-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean at the end of March ? in a boat made of plastic bottles.

Plastikiis a 60ft catamaran created from a special composite of recycled plastic. De Rothschild will take the boat, made buoyant by the addition of 12,000 two-liter plastic bottles along the hulls, from San Francisco to Sydney on an exploration of plastic litter – the most common in the type of ocean pollution.

The expedition is a way to highlight how materials can be re-used, said de Rothschild. ‘It’s about articulating solutions,’ he said. ‘We are showcasing smart materials, and all of these have an effect that can go much further.’

Seven billion kilograms of plastic are produced annually in the United States, but only five billion kilograms are recycled, according to de Rothschild’s company Adventure Ecology.

A lot of the bottles end up end floating out to sea. The Great Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, where ocean currents shepherd much of this debris, is twice the size of Texas.

When Plastiki’s voyage is over, the boat will be broken down and turned into emergency shelters, shipping pellets, clothes, and even more bottles.