Giant plastic bottle lost somewhere in Caribbean

(CNS): A major publicity stunt set up by a Norwegian soft drinks company appears to have gone awry after the 30-foot plastic drinks bottle, which was released into the Atlantic Ocean mid-March, went missing. Meant to be the largest message in a bottle, which was being tracked by satellite on its journey across the Atlantic to the Caribbean to promote the soft drink, it is now another piece of giant plastic junk lost at sea. However, the promoters are hopeful it will wash up somewhere in the region and plan a major celebration when it does.

The giant bottle was released in ocean currents off the shore of Tenerife on 15 March by Solo, a soft drink company based in Norway. The bottle was fitted with tracking equipment that was meant to allow fans and Solo to track it on an online global map. It also has a 360-degree camera that takes pictures every eight hours. But after strong solar storms last week, the satellite lost contact and the company is no longer receiving information about the location of the bottle.

"We are asking people in the area to be vigilant and notify us with any information," said Joakim Sande, CEO of Solo.

Once the bottle has been dragged to the coast and contact has been made with the person who found it, a team will leave Norway for the location to set up a celebration party, Sande said.

The company said that all kinds of security measures have been taken to ensure that the bottle will not be of danger to others at sea. It has AIS, navigation lights and is built in radar reflecting material that "cannot sink", Solo said in a release.

In an effort to promote the drink outside of the borders of Norway, Solo said it wanted to let the ocean currents carry it around the world. Faced with the loss of the satellite, the firm claimed, in an effort to get the promotion back on track, that the "message in a bottle" had become even more authentic.

“It will definitely be interesting to see where it makes landfall," Sande said. "It has been a week since the last relay position. Now we expect to receive responses from ships in transit or someone who has spotted it from the air — or even if someone comes to find a big yellow bottle on their local beach." 

The bottle was expected to cross the Atlantic in 70 days, but it has taken more than 150 days so far and the bottle has still not washed ashore.