Item — HN Reader

Very cool, short video. This guy has the right idea, esp. since the housing market is collapsing and lending is going to get really tight, not to mention the low environmental footprint of this "island."

One thing I wish they had asked him, though. What happens when the bottles/nets begin to deteriorate? (Does he replace bottles on a revolving basis?)

2 comments

Plastics degrade into smaller plastic particles. Assuming the land mass above them is sufficiently rough to entangle rising particles, the degraded material would still provide buoyancy, and simply contribute to the underlayer of the island.

Plastic is heavier than water; are you suggesting that plastic bottles degrade into smaller plastic bottles?

That would be so cute!!!

The logical solution would be to have a depth marker of some kind, and to simply add new sacks of bottles whenever it drops below some value (regardless of the cause of the drop).

Yes, and to be environment friendly you should also clean up stray bottles.

If bottle failures are contained within the sacks this shouldn't be necessary. If bottle failures aren't contained within the sacks...well, good luck.

The sacks are fishing nets... Degraded plastic would probably slip through. Popped bottles should be contained though.

Add a GPS receiver to each bottle.

Ok, you have to wait at least a few years until the receivers have become cheap enough to make this worthwile. Perhaps RFID will be there faster. Perhaps bottles will even come with RFID chips from the factory.