The North Pacific Gyre is a giant mass of plastic detritus churning around in the Pacific that isn’t going anywhere soon, and its killing off fish and birds. The birds eat it and it fills up their stomach so that they don’t have any hunger, and then they die of starvation with their stomachs full of plastic. Now one group has an admittedly far-fetched notion to recycle the plastic on the spot via floating factory ships and use the material to build a floating island utopia.

While it’s only in design phase and involves huge logistical and funding hurdles, the concept is intriguing. Specially outfitted ships would collect the plastic, separate it, shred it, wash it, heat it, make building materials, construct and island base, and atop that plastic housing would be built. No litterbugs will be allowed to live there.

You can learn more via an annoying Flash-based slideshow on their project site.

RecycledIsland [via Green.Blorge via @vjmovement]

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