6.5 tonnes of waste collected by the participants of the IV Lake Tisza PET Cup! In recent days, environmental activists have once again spent three days boating on the stretch of Lake Tisza between Tiszafüred and Tiszanána-Dinnyéshát. A total of 200 participants from the 12 enthusiastic paddleboat teams collected 400-500 bags of waste from the floodplain forests, reed beds and lakeside waste islands every day. The 4th Lake Tisza PET Cup was won by an experienced team, DHL Clean Up Hungary, while the title of Hero of the Tisza was awarded to ZÁBRÁK. The waste collection event was supported by the Ministry of Energy (EM).
Since the first PET Cup in 2013, this was the eighteenth waste collection competition organised by the idea behind the competition, the Naturfilm.hu Association. After the traditional competitions in the Upper Tisza, five years ago the organisers extended their environmental work to Lake Tisza for the first time, four years ago they started cleaning up the Bodrog, and this May they visited the Mures for the first time.
The Lake Tisza area has become an important centre for river clean-up and environmental protection programmes in recent years. In addition to the summer races, longer and shorter litter collection events are organised throughout the year, so this year the organisers were optimistic, hoping for less litter. However, the war situation is not conducive to tackling the lack of waste infrastructure across the border, with waste from Ukraine, the majority of which was carried by the flooding Tisza this year, leaving few previously cleaned up areas of the lake. Despite the heat and the mosquitoes, the participants of the IV Tisza Lake PET Cup cleaned the lake with tremendous effort and diligence, which paid off, as the organisers estimate that the almost 1500 bags of waste collected meant the removal of at least 6.5 tonnes of pollution this time.
