A first year marine science student from Falmouth is planning on taking to sea in a boat made entirely from plastic bottles.

Daniel Roberts, who attends Falmouth Marine School, is hoping to raise awareness of plastics in our oceans and raise funds for the Marine Conservation Society.

Daniel and some members of his team had planned to sail from Gyllyngvase to Swanpool Beach this week to test his creation.

“For our professional development module we are required to organise an event and raise money for a charity of our choice,” he said.

“I had been thinking up ideas for a charity project for a while and suggested it to my lecturer Colin Smith, who told me about another student that had built a bottle boat and sailed it around the world a few years ago.

“Although mine will not be as sophisticated, I like the idea behind it and so got a small team together to start planning.

“After looking at several designs over the internet, we realised that we needed to calculate the buoyancy needed for each person that would be carried.

“We calculated that a two litre coke bottle will displace two litres of water therefore giving 2kg of positive buoyancy.

“We cut the bottom off each bottle and stacked them into 11ft long 'bottle logs' which are flexible and roughly give 30kg of buoyancy each.”

Daniel and his team will continue to make the 'bottle logs' until they have run out of material. Then based on the number of logs they have, they will decide if the boat will be a catamaran or a canoe.

Daniel and his team have been delighted with the support that they’ve received, with the student union helping to collect 400 bottles to date and B&Q in Penryn interested in helping to supply materials.

To find out more about Daniel’s project, or to donate directly to the Marine Conservation Society, visit www.justgiving.com/bottleboat.