Volunteers head off plastic waste crisis by removing tons of rubbish from Hungarian river

By BELA SZANDELSZKY
Associated Press

TISZAROFF, Hungary (AP) — Thousands of muddy plastic bottles and other waterlogged pieces of rubbish are piled onto a flatbed trailer on the banks of the Tisza River in Hungary — a metric ton of waste that was removed by hand from the waterway and its floodplain in a single day. It’s the haul of volunteers participating in a 10-day competition that draws over 150 people. Life-jacketed rivergoers of all ages pile into dozens of canoes to scour Hungary’s second-largest river for trash that has flowed downstream. The annual Plastic Cup competition has gathered around 330 tons of waste from the Tisza since 2013. Their aim is to preserve Hungary’s natural environment, but also to head off a mounting global plastic waste crisis by cutting it off early in the cycle.