The Official Richie Sowa Thread

(source)

Richie Sowa is the man best known for his Spiral Island that was constructed from plastic bottles and pallets that he collected from the beach. His idea has deeper roots. Some of the native peoples of Uros, Peru still continue the tradition of living on floating islands that are made by stacking reeds and other plant matter ontop of one another in layers. The main difference between their techniques and Richie's technique is that instead of sing dead matter, Richie takes plastic bottles, fills bags with them, ties the bags onto the bottom of pallets which are tied together, and he piles dirt ontop of it all. The key part it all is that he plants mangrove trees in that soil which send out roots all of the place and deep through the setup and into the soil, connecting everything together in a living system. In addition, Richie collects dead coral that floats up onto the shore and adds them onto his floating island to act as nesting/anchor sites for new coral to attach to. As the corals and mangroves grow, they reinforce the structure of his floating island.

Here is a tour of Richie Sowa's floating island:


This is a video of Richie showing the diagram for his Spiral Island:


Here's Richie explaining how the plants and their roots hold everything together:


Richie explains how the air conditioning works on his floating island:


Waterfalls are used to feed his gardens:


A video about Richie's eco bathroom:


Here's Richie talking about how his washing machine works:


Richie catches water off his roof and stores it in a self-adjusting storage well:


In this video, Richie shows us how well the mangrove trees grow through his island: