People and Projects Solving Freshwater Restoration Challenges

EcoAdvance European Project

Showcase category ➤ DidIt

HUNGARY

Attila David Molnár

river cleanup expert, science communication advisor
Plastic Cup initiative. 

NGOs & Civil Society
My Projects

Plastic Cup Society – the Riversaver Toolkit and platform

TidyUp and Aquatic Plastic (Interreg);

5 countries 1 river and River Lit(t)eracy & Riversaver School Network (Erasmus);

DALIA (Danube Lighthouse) projects.

  • Key project facts

    Plastic Cup Initiative’s achievements

      1. Habitat restoration, plastic pollution management
        400+ tonnes of riverine litter removed from Danube tributaries over 10+ years.
        Prevented over 1,000 tonnes of waste—especially in Ukraine—from entering rivers .
        Annual cleanups on the Tisza River collect around 70 tonnes of waste per season, including \~4 million plastic bottles.

      2. Recycling & Circular Innovation
        200 tonnes of collected waste have been recycled into new products.
        Prototypes like re-plastic kayaks are made exclusively from recycled HDPE river waste.

      3. Innovation & Research
        Developed GPS-based tracking bottles (using satellite links every 15 minutes) to map plastic movement; one passed \~300 km before being caught at Kisköre dam.
        Tested remote sensing tools and protocols under the “Riversaver Toolkit” for river cleanup.
        Educated volunteers and participated in international forums (Budapest Water Summit, ISWA Bilbao, Aquatech Amsterdam) 

      4. Capacity Building & Awareness
        Trained community leaders and thousands of volunteers across 8–9 countries (Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro).
        Citizen science initiatives engaged schools and NGOs using GPS-tagged bottles.
        Produced educational campaigns, short films, podcasts, and supporter materials .

  • What impact did these projects have on biodiversity, if any?

    Plastic Cup restored hundreds of hectares of floodplain forests and riverside habitats. The problem is with the repetitional plastic floods. For that reason, habitat restoration results are only temporary, areas are re-polluted.

  • What work challenges did you face and what approach did you take to solve them?

    Apart from the repeating plastic floods, the war in Ukraine and the unsustainable methodologies set up the greatest challenges. We constantly work on new, cost effective solutions that tend to use renewable energy sources and decrease the environmental stress of the interventions.

  • What lessons learned are transferable to other places/projects?

    We have written 2  publications on our the knowhow that we have gathered and we think is replicable elsewhere. The first is  a policy guidance paper: https://www.icpdr.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/ICPDR_Policy_Guidance2024.pdf, the second is a book: https://dtp.interreg-danube.eu/uploads/media/approved_project_output/0001/56/4fb08d49141573d5aecbea014f841deaa6cb28c7.pdf 

    Recently we develop a new comprehensive website to summarize our solutions under the link: www.riversaver.eu

My Focus and Approach
  • Lessons Learnt - Some recommendations for others?
    1. What’s most important:

      Staying close to the river.

    2. Do this, not that: 

      Build communities, not business. Make connections, not money.

    3. Always start by:

      Read scientific papers and books.

    4. What to do when things get difficult…:

      Sleep on it.

    5. 5 simple steps to:
      1. Write a protocol.
      2. Try to follow it.
      3. Learn to change it.
      4. Get used to improvise.
      5. Document everything.

    6. The biggest barrier and what I am trying to do about it:
      Interpersonal rivalry. I try to communicate as much as I can, but I do not want to be a friend or a teacher – just a good colleague.
My Journey
  • My journey:

    I am a molecular biologist, with a doctorate in scientific filmmaking. I always wanted to make wildlife documentaries and scientific films, but ended up dealing with pollution, because of the grave situation of rivers in the Danube River Basin.

  • My Education:

    I hold an MSc in Molecular Biology, which I earned in 2001 at ELTE’s Department of Microbiology in cooperation with the University of Vienna’s Department of Marine Biology. In 2003, I completed a degree in Video Communication and Applied Video at ELTE. In 2024, I successfully defended my doctoral thesis on short scientific films at the University of Theatre and Film Arts.

  • The Big Change:

    People say that the NGO that I founded with my wife and friends as back as 1996, is a very unique organization. It is capable of building communities, teams, and achieve environmental goals. Today, Plastic Cup initative has trained river cleanup coordinators in 9 Danube River countries and have hundreds of active volunteers.

  • Favourite part of the work I do:

    Being on a boat, out on the river.

Interview

Key Topics:

Key Topics

These relate to specific topics (e.g. technical solutions; restoration activities etc.) addressed within the showcase materials.

  • plastic pollution
  • river restoration
  • plastic recycling
  • Blue economy
Prone2Success Factors Demonstrated:

Prone2Success Factors Demonstrated

These are the Prone2Success checklist factors which are highlighted within this showcase. More information on the Prone2Success checklist can be found here.

  • Measurable goals to improve ecological status
  • Measurable goals to improve ecosystem services
  • Supports WFD, NRL and other restoration policy goals
  • Communicate/engage with stakeholders from the outset
  • Engage with the local community from the outset
  • Obtain sufficient finance for all project stages
  • Local planning processes are transparent / clearly understood
  • Include long term monitoring
  • Include adaptive management approaches (combined with monitoring)
  • Ensure stakeholder understanding / education of restoration goals & benefits
  • Demonstrate specific ecological improvements/legal compliance / communicating results during and after the project
  • Take climate change into account
NRL Restoration Categories:

NRL Restoration Categories

These are the restoration categories (listed under Annex VII of the European Nature Restoration Law (NRL) which are relevant to this showcase.

  • [2] Improve hydrological conditions
  • [6] Remove obsolete barriers
  • [7] Re-naturalise river beds
  • [8] Restore natural sedimentation
  • [9] Establish riparian buffers
  • [12] Assist migration of provenances and species
  • [26] Restore fish spawning / nursery areas
  • [32] Reduce pollution (chemicals, urban/industrial wastewater, litter, plastics)
Resources
Articles
Peer reviewed papers
  • Fleit G., Nagy T., Málnás A.K., Husztik D., Ilcsik Cs., Molnár D.A., Gyalai-Korpos M., Baranya S. (2023) Coupled Field and Numerical Analysis of Riverine Macroplastic Transport. In Proceedings of the 40th IAHR World Congress, 21–25 August 2023, Vienna, Austria. https://www.iahr.org/library/infor?pid=29582
  • Molnár AD, Málnás K, Bőhm S, Gyalai-Korpos M, Cserép M, Kiss T. (2024) Comparative Analysis of Riverine Plastic Pollution Combining Citizen Science, Remote Sensing and Water Quality Monitoring Techniques. Sustainability. 16(12):5040. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16125040
  • Ronkay F, Slezák E, Gere D, Lukács N, Gyalai-Korpos M, Molnár DA, Bocz K (2025)  Thermoanalytical Approach to Assess Riverine PET Litter and Its Recycling Potential. Sci Rep 15, 15673 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-94925-y
Videos

DALIA Lighthouse Plastic Cup trailer

Everything about Plastic Cup

Euronews report about the Bodrog river

Clippings, white papers
Acknowledgements & Links

This material was provided by: Attila Dávid Molnár

 

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