Advancing freshwater restoration

1. What’s most important:
   

   The success of Plastic Cup has two keys:

   • Waste is value!
   • Cleanup must be fun!
2. Do this, not that: 
   

   Stop the pollution at the river as close to its origin as possible, and not in the ocean. With the distance, plastic will fall to pieces leading to microplastic pollution and some of the plastic object will sink or covered by sludge – no one will ever collect them.

   The best solution is prevention though. This is the reason Plastic Cup has a dedicated education program for schools, has a fleet of awareness raising tools and works together with waste management entrepreneurs in Ukraine (source are of Bodrog and the waste) to divert waste from the river. so far more than 1200 tonnes got diverted.

3. Always start by:
   

   Connecting to the local community and stakeholders. They can help you a lot – they know the river and each other. You have the methods on how to clean the river, but they live there and need to be engaged for a long term success.

4. What to do when things get difficult…:
   

   Call the water rescue team! No joke, water and outdoors can be dangerous, be prepared for the worst by having an official water rescue team present.

5. 5 simple steps to:
   
   1. Respect the river – build connections to the local communities and organizations.
   2. Learn the waste – do the monitoring of the targeted area to find the polluted spots.
   3. Form your team – recruit volunteers and assign tasks.
   4. Do the dirty job with smile – collect the waste with ensuring that everyone is happy.
   5. Sort the collection – up to 70% recycling rate is possible with so much opportunities in upcycling!
      
      
6. The biggest barrier and what I am trying to do about it:
   

   To address the complex issue of transboundary riverine litter pollution, Plastic Cup has developed a comprehensive solution tailored to the multinational context of the Danube River Basin, known as the Riversaver Toolkit. As part of the Danube Lighthouse project DALIA, this toolkit will be made available as a one-stop-shop platform; a single, user-friendly website that brings all relevant tools, resources, and methodologies together in one place. 

   This aims to tackle the first major challenge: rivers vary not only from one to another, but even a single river changes from day to day. Selecting the best cleanup approach is rarely straightforward. 

   The second major challenge is ensuring the long-term sustainability of river cleanup efforts. 

   The Riversaver Toolkit is designed to support both the strategic planning and operational execution of cleanup actions—making them more effective, adaptable, and resilient over time. To support funding for cleanup and prevention efforts, Plastic Cup develops innovative revenue streams. These include opening community river cleanups to companies willing to pay a participation fee, certifying and accrediting collected and sorted environmental plastics, and producing circular raw materials from riverine waste. All of these efforts contribute to making river cleanup not only impactful—but financially sustainable as well.

Already from my childhood I have been an outdoor, water guy. Family holidays, usually ended up at water sides – for canoeing at the river, or windsurfing at lakes, and so on. Before age of 10, I canoed, windsurfed, sailed, etc. So, the link to the water which now is missing from many people, was established for me very early. That was complemented with interest for environment and sustainability. Meeting the Plastic Cup fleet at the Tisza river, then was decisive and the case was there – mixing the hobby with the good deed for a better world. But, we all know since then that cleanup is fun! 

• Msc in bioengineering and then PhD in chemistry and chemical engineering – both at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. 

Getting respect and attention to the rivers!

Getting dirty and collecting waste in the floodplain while seeing have this whole feeling can catch people willing to collect every bottle.