Tuesday 07 / May / 2024
Muscat: Cheltenham Muscat school and Oman Sail have officially attempted a Guinness World Record for the Largest Plastic Bottle Sentence. The ambitious attempt took place on Tuesday 28th and Wednesday 29th November 2023 at the Cheltenham Muscat school, a total of 877 participants, that included pupils, staff and sailors placed bottles into a sentence. The existing record is 11,939 plastic bottles achieved in Mumbai, India, on 10th October 2022 and their goal is to have doubled the current record, with 24,000+ bottles.
Oona Carlin, Executive Principal of Cheltenham Muscat school, commented, “I am extremely proud of everyone at our school, Oman Sail and the local community, for taking on this challenge to collect their weekly waste of plastic bottles. To break this Guinness World Record would truly highlight how as a society, we too easily take for granted how many single use plastic bottles we daily use and raise awareness of how we all need to reuse, recycle, reduce to protect our planet for future generations. Our pupils are environmentally conscious and understand the importance of sustainable initiatives and we all hope that this initiative will inspire others and create change.”
Dr Khamis Al Jabri, CEO of Oman Sail, said, “We are delighted to have partnered with Cheltenham Muscat school on this attempt and to further raise awareness of the global issue of plastic. Oman Sail always encourages, locals, visiting sailors and coaches to take the UN #CleanSeas pledge to reduce or eliminate their single use plastic in their everyday life. We embed sustainability initiatives into every hosted event, from beach clean-ups to tree planting. Oman Sail started collecting bottles in late October during the Mussanah Race Week presented by Renaissance Services beach clean with 122 plastic bottles removed from the public beach by sailors.”
Cheltenham Muscat school will reuse and recycle the bottles used to form the Largest Plastic Bottle Sentence and together with Oman Sail they plan to continue to be an advocate for behavioural change and a more sustainable future to benefit the local community and the Sultanate of Oman.
The attempt will be officially verified by a Guinness World Records Adjudicator on 4th December 2023 to mark World Wildlife Conservation Day and to launch the school’s international conservation programme "Project Earthlings”.
