DIY sailor in flooded Myanmar invents boat made from trash

GlobalPost

BANGKOK, Thailand — Myanmar’s people, among Asia’s most neglected and impoverished, are used to making do with very little. This a country where cars are driven until the floorboards rust away and jungle dwellers charge mobile phones with solar panels.

But even by Myanmar’s standards, this is DIY genius. It’s a boat — with a working motor — crafted out of discarded sports drink bottles.

At the moment, Myanmar needs all the boats it can get. Extreme monsoon rains have left much of the nation underwater. Many people are stranded and hungry with more than 150,000 needing “immediate food assistance,” according to the UN.

Enter a man named Aung Set Paing from Myanmar’s flood-ravaged delta region. He’s a 41-year-old ex-sailor who now works at a beverage distributor that sells everything from Nescafe to Sunkist.

Aung Set Paing’s invention, the bottle boat, is built from 500 empty containers of Pocari Sweat, a Gatorade-like sports drink from Japan. 

He told The Myanmar Times that the boats cost $100 to make using “grille work and electrical cables” and can carry two people once the outboard motor is attached. 

The original boat, which he’s been showing off on his Facebook page, has been donated to relief workers so it can deliver supplies full time. It’s already been deployed in his waterlogged hometown, Pyay, to ferry around instant noodles and other staples.

With most of its provinces hit by flooding, Myanmar is likely amassing a bigger flotilla of DIY boats. Photos have already emerged of guys on shoddily assembled vessels made from plastic jugs and soggy planks. The UN warns of a “double catastrophe” as flooding compounds woes in areas already mired in poverty and conflict.

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