Record attempt to cross the North Sea on a kite-foil board from Scheveningen (NL) to Lowestoft (GB). The surfboard was made from small plastic bottles.
The expedition marked the start of a petition that called for the implementation of deposit fee on small plastic bottles.
Watch the movie Message on a bottle about the record attempt.
On the 3rd of September 2016, I set off to cross the North Sea on kite-foil board made from plastic bottles, together with board shaper Hoogendijk. The 190 km crossing, a Guiness Book record attempt, marked the start of a petition that called for a deposit return system for small plastic bottles (75 million littered in the Netherlands every year).
The crossing proved a bigger challenge than expected due to changing weather conditions, current, waves and plastc pollution.
The petition got signed by 55,000 people and was presented in Parliament in February 2017. This has forced a political breakthrough which a few years later led to the implementation of a deposit fee on small plastic bottles in 2021.
