Designing a plastic bottle island/floating platform

[toxictom]

I think I've seen a couple boats made from bottles on Instructables.com. It's a great resource. All these posts make it sound like you wish to put this boat in the water and just let it float away to the big plastic dump in the ocean.

[JamesG]

No, i'm not interested in letting it float away to the plastic dump in the ocean. I would like to build it, live on it, go surfing, throw concerts, and travel... I don't really have a clear idea of what the whole thing is going to be about though.
I'm afraid i'll have to make it an environmental awareness thing to get social acceptance. I would rather just do my own thing though. I would rather people be drawn to it for a wide variety of reasons that way my days aren't spent talking about the environment 24/7. I'm open to ideas.

Oh, and thanks for the instructables.com tip. I'll check it out.

[gonzo]

"environmental awareness" is one of the modern catch phrases. It usually means people polluting pristine land with gigantic "ranch houses" with fireplaces that produce all kinds of smog. As long as you dress it right, the social acceptance is already there.

[JamesG]

Does anyone have an idea about how i could make molds, throw some plastic in them, and pop out nice little buoyant containers?

It would be nice if i didn't have to heat the plastic up until its molten. I want it to be as simple as possible. Maybe throw random types of plastic into a hot mold, clamp it down under high pressure, then pop it out with some decent adhesion between the various types of plastic.

Anybody know about his type of stuff?

Update:
I think what i am asking about is called "heat compression" according to Wikipedia. Can I do this myself? Is there a lot involved?

[peter radclyffe]

if you set off an atom bomb in the plastic island it may produce the perfect mushroom
sad but true
it would contain it all in one hit
or you could dredge it
& dump it all in a volcano
& put it all back where it came from
irresponsible talk

[JamesG]

Does anybody know about the "heat compression" method of recycling plastic? I couldn't find much about it on google, but maybe its known by a different name.

I'm trying to find a simple way to make buoyant containers out of various types of plastic.

Originally Posted by JamesG

Does anybody know about the "heat compression" method of recycling plastic? I couldn't find much about it on google, but maybe its known by a different name.

I'm trying to find a simple way to make buoyant containers out of various types of plastic.

just impossible!
Due to the many different sorts of plastic, and their extremely different technical properties, a mix is hard to achieve, brittle, and worth nearly nothing.
We have had some park banks in Germany made out of that crap. They did deteriorate faster than the weakest wood would.

[Boston]

ya we have had a lot of failures in the engineered lumbers that use a high percentage of post consumer plastics
I've looked at two jobs just in the last month that involved replacement of these products, I turned them down.

oh found this on the BBC today
I been saying this for years as one of my friends is a researchers involved with plastics chemical pollution

Plastic chemicals 'feminise boys'
( a class of chemicals known as Tartarogens that have been known for some time to cause genital malformations )

Chemicals in plastics alter the brains of baby boys, making them "more feminine", say US researchers.

Males exposed to high doses in the womb went on to be less likely to play with boys' toys like cars or to join in rough and tumble games, they found.

The University of Rochester team's latest work adds to concerns about the safety of phthalates, found in vinyl flooring and PVC shower curtains.

The findings are reported in the International Journal of Andrology.

Plastic furniture

Phthalates have the ability to disrupt hormones, and have been banned in toys in the EU for some years.

However, they are still widely used in many different household items, including plastic furniture and packaging.

There are many different types and some mimic the female hormone oestrogen.

This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true 'gender benders'
Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of CHEM Trust

The same researchers have already shown that this can mean boys are born with genital abnormalities.

Now they say certain phthalates also impact on the developing brain, by knocking out the action of the male hormone testosterone.

Dr Shanna Swan and her team tested urine samples from mothers over midway through pregnancy for traces of phthalates.

The women, who gave birth to 74 boys and 71 girls, were followed up when their children were aged four to seven and asked about the toys the youngsters played with and the games they enjoyed.

Girls' play

They found that two phthalates DEHP and DBP can affect play behaviour.

Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in "rougher" games like playfighting.

PHTHALATES
There are many different types and the most commonly used are deemed entirely safe by regulators
DEHP - used to make PVC soft and pliable and used in products like flooring
DBP - used as a plasticiser in glues, dyes and textiles

Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of the chemicals campaign group CHEM Trust, said the results were worrying.

"We now know that phthalates, to which we are all constantly exposed, are extremely worrying from a health perspective, leading to disruption of male reproduction health and, it appears, male behaviour too.

"This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true 'gender benders'."

She acknowledged that the boys who have been studied were still young, but she said reduced masculine play at this age might lead to other feminised developments in later life.

But Tim Edgar, of the European Council for Plasticisers and Intermediates, said: "We need to get some scientific experts to look at this study in more detail before we can make a proper judgement."

He said there were many different phthalates in use and the study concerned two of the less commonly used types that were on the EU candidate list as potentially hazardous and needing authorisation for use.

DBP has been banned from use in cosmetics, such as nail varnish, since 2005 in the EU.

The British Plastics Federation said: "Chemical safety is of paramount importance to the plastics industry which has invested heavily in researching the substances it uses.

"Moreover, the new European Chemical Regulation, REACH, will ensure further rigorous evaluation and testing or chemical substances and their uses."

[Submarine Tom]

Canada has recently banned the use of PHTHALATES

If interested in the effects, Google CBC "The Disappearing Male"

It runs 44 minutes, with no commercials, in English. Then try and live

your life with no plastics. Very challenging, nearly impossible I'm afraid.

-Tom

[PAR]

I hate phthalates too, I prefer that she just take the pill . . .

[gonzo]

Do you still play with trains?

[Boston]

in men these kinda of drugs tend to have two effects
makes your balls either not develop or under-develop and it alters the brain chemistry in some way to reduce the production of chemicals linked to testicle development

if your one of those who thinks its all some kind of crock to whittle more money out of you for some arcane environmental BS read this

http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/extra/sperm.htm

[JamesG]

I noticed today, as i was going for a walk, that the recycled plastic lumber was indeed brittle and warping. It was lining a gravel side walk in the desert. I looked at a piece that broke off and it has tons of voids, air bubbles. They were so small that the strength probably wouldn't be effected much, but when the sun heats the lumber up the plastic is probably very soft and tears like taffy. It probably warps and tears very slowly in the sun.

I think i might use bottles afterall, but they need to be contained very well and off the radar of people 's minds. There can be NO chance of them getting lose.

HERE is the question-
What is the best way to contain plastic bottles for this plastic bottle island? By the way, the island HAS to be flexible so that it can survive rough waters from every direction. If there's nothing rigid its less liking to break. And it can always go OVER waves instead of bow crash through them like conventional ships.

Seal them up in cement blocks? And then link the blocks together to form a platform?

Put them in steal drums?

Put them into strong nylon or canvas bags? Double bag them, triple bag them, etc. Then make the whole island with strong nets, basically sewing a big floating rug.

Put them in blue plastic rain barrels. Somehow make a nice flexible platform out if that.



In my head there are only two good ways to make this island flexible yet stiff enough to stand on.

- The cube method. Where you have multiple cubes or tiles that are linked together that make a floating platform. The cubes can be held together by rope or mechanical hinges.

- Material/rug method. Where you basically weave a rug, sewing it together with plastic bottles in it. You start out with a net that's in the shape of a continuous tube and fill it with bottles. Then you wrap the filled net around itself into a spiral. As you create the spiral you sew each section to the next so that they are one continuous surface, just like a rug.

The problem i see with the cube method is how do you prevent dirt from falling between the cubes? Because as you remember this island will actually have dirt and plants on it. Another problem might be just making sure that the junction between the cubes does not wear out. It could be replaceable I suppose. Just swim underneath the island and inspect it for wear.

The problem i see with the material/rug method is it gradually deforming. Bottles will gradually collapse and break over time and therefore shift. You might end up with an island that is not very "plump" with bottles anymore. When this happens the island will sag in spots and water could end up making puddles in the surface where you stand. When this happens there would also be increased lateral movement. The island would squish together and contract quite a bit. The solution might be to either add more bottles and sew them into the the deflated areas, OR to tug on some lines to cinch the island up into it's center thereby increasing it's thickness and decreasing its diameter. I don't feel like dirt would make its way through the cracks with this design because it would get packed in pretty well and i could very easily lay something down like sheets rubber to prevent this from happening. By the way, the bottles may not collapse at all. One man has made an island out of plastic bottles already and he said they last a very long time. He said the organic matter or slime that coats the bottles provides lubrication. This sounds great, but don't you think barnacles will form too? I'm researching barnacle prevention (anti-fouling) via copper electrodes in the water because it would be impossible to scrape barnacles off of bottles. See my other post for that.

[JamesG]

Check this out! This is a modular dock system. It flexes with the waves and I can keep adding more blocks to make it bigger and bigger. The blocks even connect vertically, which is nice because I can make it stiffer and more buoyant if needed.

http://www.molo-jetfloat.cz/admin/fo...2002%20062.jpg

Originally Posted by JamesG

Because as you remember this island will actually have dirt and plants on it.

And a hughe watermaker to feed the plants?