Island made out of recycled bottles

Recycling is the way to save the planet and make a few cents for homeless people. Combine the two and you have recycled bottle island. Richie Sowa lived off of Cancun with a few chickens, cats, a dog. This floating homeless person spent his days floating around looking for more bottles and hoped there wasn’t a big storm on trash island.

Boasting three beaches the island located south of Cancun Mexico floated on 250,000 plastic bottles. Spiral Island as it’s owner has named it even has it’s own website. Construction on Spiral island began in 1998 eventually sported a two-story house, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet, three beaches, and many mangrove trees that thrive in the salt water.

The bottles that floated the island

Richie Sowa, a British expatriate began building Spiral Island, a 66 x 54 foot floating artificial island in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras, in the state of Quintana Roo on the East coast of Mexico, 120 miles south of Cancún.

The two story island.

The interior.

The beach

Greeting visitors

Richie’s pets

Arriving on the island

Sadly, Spiral Island was destroyed by Hurricane Emily in 2005 although Richie has already begun testing a new motor for a new island to be built in a more sheltered area.

Testing out the new motor for spiral island 2.

The prototype for the new island.

Video on the Spiral island

Spiral Island Site