Plastic bottle raft, a boon for Asokan

Thrissur: People make rafts with many objects - bamboo, wood, pipes, plantain stems and so on. But Asokan’s raft is unique and it turns a bliss for not just him but also for the environment. The plastic water bottles left behind by the visitors in the vicinity of Athirappilly were the resources for Asokan to build his raft. He collected hundreds of them to make a raft to row. 

Asokan wanted to make a raft for fishing and to bring grass for his cattle. But he found the bamboo or pipe rafts too expensive. Later Asokan found a solution to build a raft with plastic bottles which are thrown away by visitors near the falls. 

At first he made a small raft on a experimental basis and then a bigger one which he uses now. The raft which was made using 160 bottles of 1 litre capacity is 4 feet wide and 10 feet long. The bottles are placed in four rows with 40 bottles in each of the row and tied together with ropes. Long splinters of areca palm are also fixed for support. 

Asokan said that the bottle raft is easy to handle as it is lightweight. It took two days for him to build the raft and only Rs 50 for rope was spent for the entire production.