After months of online discussions, time has finally come for Tid(y)Up partners to meet in person. To meet not only colleagues but the river pollution itself, face-to-face. The experience was inspiring and shocking at the same time. Field report from the Middle-Tisza valley with a short VIDEO SUMMARY.

International partner meeting in Karcag, June, 2021. (photo: Veselin Bezanovic)

In June 2021 the first face-to-face international partner meeting of Tid(y)Up project was held in Hungary. The series of events started with a regular partner conference in Karcag. After the project management talks and discussions however, the team moved to one of Europe's most polluted rivers, the Tisza. The reason? In Tid(y)Up, partners not only measure and discuss river pollution but also manage it on a national and international level. One of the biggest large scale river cleanups organized for 2021 by the lead partner of Tid(y)Up. The THU Society, and its main environmental initiative, the PLASTIC Cup wanted to show all members of the partnership how NGOs, companies and local people work together in order to manage the repeating plastic pollution waves.

The first in-person encounter with riverine-plastic accumulations were shocking for many.

- Building the team's own boat and learning more about macroplastics in a workshop environment did not go as well as planned. - said Attila D. Molnár, chairman of the lead partner, and captain of the biggest plastic bottle boat PETÉNYI on the event - Next time we will do better and separate learning and practice so that team members have more time to change their minds and adapt to field conditions.

Macroplastic workshop out in the field.

- Thankfully for the public services, processing companies, also for the innovative solutions, PLASTIC Cup has become the largest river pollution managing and recycling civil initiative – said by Gergely Hankó, executive of Tid(y)Up's partner, HAEE. The event started on June 12nd Saturday, at Tiszafüred, with the building of the plastic bottle boats. Followed by the official opening ceremony on Sunday 9.30 a.m, the ships set sail. The area was familiar for the plastic pirates: the route was the same as two years ago, between Tiszafüred and Kisköre. 11 teams took part in the plastic bottle boat race, 3 old and 8 new teams attended. Among them, the international team of Tid(y)Up.

Cleaning the river from a canoe.

And selecting the collected waste onboard the plastic bottle boat of TidyUp.

Hungary and the whole Tisza valley has received a lot of trash with the January and February floods. The pollution is deposited along the shores. The biggest plastic piles were visible even from the canoes. As they got to land, inside the forest, the pollution was enormous. Special, secured water and land areas were cleaned, but the amount of pollution requires further actions.

Jaroslav from Slovakia, steering the PLASTIC Cup flagship, PETényi. 

The teams fought with great diligence and perseverance, not only with river pollution but also heat, discomfort and the mosquitos. Against all difficulties, during the three days, teams and volunteers collected 1222 bags of trash. Organizers have been paying attention to the thorough selection and recycling since the first competition. Teams took part in this process as they sorted the trash on the land or on board. Teams got credits for the bags, but for ‘superbags’ (a bag with same colour, uncapped plastic bottles) teams got 4 times more credits. More than 50% of the trash were plastic bottles, but members found fridges, televisions, insulating, and dangerous (paint, oil barrels) materials.

Floating only on recycled plastic bottles, PETényi is able to carry nearly 2 tons of pollution onboard. 

5 tons of trash was picked, managed and selected  from Tisza-lake at the first Plastic Cup competition of the year from Tiszafüred until Kisköre. The race was really tight, but Middle-Tisza Water Authorities (KÖTIVIZIG) defended its title from 2019. Ökosabb ended up on 2nd place, also got the Hero of Tisza award. Organizers want to say thank you for all the attendants, volunteers, partners, supporters, local governments and associating groups.

The shooting of the project documentary.

In trash management, the main sponsors of the event were the Hungarian Association of Environmental Enterprises and NHSZ Tisza Nonprofit Ltd. NHSZ Tisza provided almost 30 m3 of plastic bottles for building the main body of ships. A Hungarian trash mapping application help the pirates’ daily adventure. Konasoft helped to present a new application what collects all the mandatory information for the pirates, like registration, programmes, points and rankings.

A new, trash picking boat helped the teams – which was sponsored by ITM. Another older ship, called PETényi, which was built by crowdfunding campaign, to help the volunteers. This mothership is a crucial member of PLASTIC Cup events for five years, since it carries around 1,5-2 tons of trash day-by-day. A complete refurbishment became necessary this spring. Organizers got an extraordinary assist from members of Endurance Mission 3.0: their Danube expedition raises the awareness of the importance of our living water, especially rivers, and the donations helped to renovate PETényi. Trash picked up around Tisza will be sorted in 14 groups and 60% of them will be recycled, just like in the past years.

Because cleaning rivers can be great fun! 

Teams of the 2021 Tisza Lake PLASTIC Cup: AIT Desks, Debreceni Környezetvédők Tásasága, Decathlon, DHL Clean up Hungary, Funrafting, Green Guide, Interreg, KALL Ingredients, KÖTIVIZIG, ÖkosaBB, Prezi, M.V. PETényi, TidyUp

text by Gergely Hankó, Anna Istenes, Attila D. Molnár

special thanks to Zsolt Kiss, Boglárka Rosta

photos by Vanda Molnár, Péter Varga, Eniko Kubinyi, PLASTIC Cup, Veselin Bezanovic

video summary by PLASTIC Cup

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