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Frequently asked questions

Do you have questions about our work and our missions? We have compiled the most important information about everwave below.

More about our Impact

We collect any garbage that is in the water or 200 meters around the water. This means that we and our local partners also clean up the banks by hand, as there is an extremely high risk of the garbage lying there getting into the water. This happens, for example, due to rising water levels, rain or wind.

For the cleanup missions from mid-2021, we have weight certificates for the specified quantities of waste.

After the collected material has been dried and the waste has been separated from the wood, it is then transported to the recycling center or the sorting facility. It is then weighed at the recycling centers and we receive the weighing slips.

At the beginning of our first missions, the focus was on removing waste from the environment. Our plastic credits did not yet exist at this time, so we do not have any weighing slips for our first Slovakia assignment in 2020, for example.

The waste was taken by our waste collection boats directly for recycling (including thermal recycling). The values used here are extrapolations that we have drawn from the following data, depending on the application:

  • Number of boatloads (one boatload comprises approx. 1.5 tons of waste)
  • Container capacity
  • Analysis of AI data: on some missions, a drone flew over our site and fed the data to an AI, which was able to tell us what percentage of garbage and what percentage of wood was in the water.

For our Cleanup Missions, the weighing slips are always issued by external organizations or companies (e.g. recycling centers). In Cambodia, for example, we use Cleanhub to track the material flow of our waste from collection to disposal. Our aim is to use the app for all future deployments and also to be tested by certifiers.

We attach great importance to determining the figures as accurately as possible. Figures only deviate where everwave has no influence – for example, due to external circumstances.

A transparent example: In our Cleanup Mission in Slovakia in 2021, for example, we are certain that we have collected more. It is very likely that material was removed before we were able to verify a possibly higher number of tons.

More about cooperation and Plastic CreditS


To be honest: we didn’t come up with the term Plastic Credit. But in the cleanup industry, this is now the term for what we do. Very important: we don’t just collect plastic, of course, but everything that doesn’t belong in the water. Among the collected waste we also find refrigerators, textiles and car tires. Before recycling, we naturally separate and sort all materials and feed them into different channels. One plastic credit is therefore 1 kilo of waste. Organic materials (wood, plants) are sorted out beforehand and are not included in the calculation!

The holistic approach is important to us, which is why, in addition to active waste collection, this one euro also goes towards recycling, building infrastructure and inspiring individuals, politics and business.

We give a very precise value, namely 1 kg of waste = 1 euro net. Not only do we comply with this value, we also adhere to it 100%. Companies receive a detailed report from us on where their money has been spent (on which cleanups and on which rivers). In addition, external monitors (e.g. Cleanhub) check in the respective projects that we have really collected this waste.

We would like to make it clear: Greenwashing is not an option for us. A sustainable economy is the future and anyone who does something about environmental pollution is already one step ahead of anyone who doesn’t yet. Customers are also increasingly paying attention to sustainability in their purchasing decisions. Following this path as a company is therefore the logical consequence. Supporting the environment through the purchase of everwave Plastic Credits serves as an additional opportunity for companies to fulfill their environmental and social responsibility – verified and certified. We communicate clear figures (1€ = 1kg) and transparent procedures and processes.

More about our projects

Rivers are lifelines of our planet that have attracted people for centuries. As a result, they are heavily polluted and become the main transport routes for waste into our oceans. In order to protect our oceans more efficiently, we have been positioning ourselves at the root – the world’s rivers – since the end of 2018. A logical step that brings several advantages.

  • No Sisyphean effort on confusing garbage patches
  • No danger to technologies from strong storms in the open oceans
  • Faster securing & faster protection of technologies thanks to proximity to the riverbank
  • Proximity to the countryside facilitates waste transportation and local recycling logistics
  • Maintenance work can be carried out more easily and cost-effectively

The collected waste also includes organic materials such as dead wood and waste that is not made of plastic, for example refrigerators and car tires. Before recycling, we naturally separate and sort all materials and feed them into different channels. Any form of waste that we remove from the water can cause damage to the environment.

We see waste as a valuable resource that we want to return to the cycle. The first step is manual sorting on site, which we implement together with our partners. We have built sorting centers in Cambodia and Thailand, for example. The individual material flows are then processed further depending on their condition. If they are recyclable, they are passed on locally. If not, they are sent for thermal recycling.

We are also part of the MIX-UP research project: the highest-quality approach that we are investigating with our MIX-UP partners is the biotechnological approach, in which we use bacterial cultures to convert and “upcycle” petroleum-based plastic into biodegradable plastics.

We work with drones that are equipped with cameras. By analyzing the images with the help of artificial intelligence, we are able to identify waste hot spots. In addition, we can use the technology of our partner, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), to make a statement about the type, composition and quantity of plastic.

Together with DFKI, we are also part of the PlasticObs+ research project, which has precisely this goal: The development of an artificially intelligent system for the global collection of data on plastic waste distribution in the environment with the help of drones and aircraft.

The information is particularly helpful in prevention work: we use it to support local governments, authorities and environmental organizations in finding the cause and taking countermeasures. Supplemented with weather and current data, we can also use our cleanup technology in a more targeted manner.

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