The spirit of friendship: 1, Ocean conservation: 0

Canadian Harold Hackett thinks he has come up with a novel, romantic way of making friends around the world. No, not on Facebook or LinkedIn or some cheesy dating website; for the past fifteen years, he has stepped onto the beach near his home on Prince Edward Island, Canada each day and tossed a handful of plastic bottles into the surf.

To date he has thrown about 4 800 bottles into the sea. Each bottle is sealed and contains a message, his name and address, and, though it takes some time, its far from being a waste of it-  until now, Harold has made over 3 000 friends around the world this way, though he has never personally met any of them.

Some of the locations Harold’s “friend requests” have washed up

The ocean currents have taken his messages in a bottle as far afield as America, Europe and Africa, though often it takes years before he receives a response. People that have found his messages washed up along some far away shore have sent him letters, postcards and even gifts.

Check out some video on Harold and his vintage social networking tactics, after the jump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9DzGYfh7fE

[Source: Yahoo, BBC]