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Our mission is to clean rivers of plastic waste and thus protect the sea through technological innovation, ecological inspiration, and international integration for a sustainable future.
*without weight slips
**Flood operation in the Eifel: Waste not sold as plastic credits due to the emergency situation
Make your company a pioneer in sustainability and actively work towards a clean future.
For 1€ you collect 1 kg of garbage from the water together with us. Or you can become a strategic partner and make our projects big!
Together, we ensure a healthy environment and free the world’s rivers from waste.
Contact us at cooperations@everwave.de or click here:
Waste / total material
Why we differentiate between “waste” and “total material”
The most common types of waste that we collect are plastic (primarily PET, then PP, HDPE, LDPE, etc.), glass, metal, rubber, textiles, electronic waste, bulky waste, toxic substances and more. We regard waste as a valuable resource and want to return it to the cycle wherever possible. Only waste is included in our Plastic Credits. The organic material is sorted out before the waste is weighed!
Wood is included in the total material. In the Balkan countries in particular, we had to deal with large and heavy logs that we also had to get out of the water. For example, to prevent them from clogging the turbines of adjacent hydropower plants. Secondly, wood grinds plastic, which is why logs are often contaminated with microplastics. This means that we successfully remove even the smallest plastic particles from the water.
We collect garbage in rivers and lakes – up to 200m from the shore.
The material is dried so that no water remains.
Recyclable material is separated from non-recyclable and organic material.
Recyclable material is sorted and divided into PET, LDPE or textiles, for example. It is then weighed.
Non-recyclable material is weighed and sent for thermal recycling to generate energy.
Recyclable material is returned to the material cycle by local partners.
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:
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.
An important step: recognizing waste in the environment. In collaboration with the German Institute for Artificial Intelligence, we use artificial intelligence to effectively locate and analyze waste in water. This crucial step not only serves to identify sources of contamination, but also provides information for the use of cleaning measures.
Our innovative CollectiX waste collection boats carry out our cleanup missions. Often supplemented by barriers! They are designed to efficiently collect waste from rivers and ensure that it does not end up in the oceans. Their ability to navigate different waterways makes them an indispensable part of our global clean-up operations.
After collection, the waste undergoes a recycling process. Our aim is to reintegrate as much of the collected material back into the cycle as possible under local conditions. By working with local recycling facilities, we strive to process and reduce waste in an environmentally friendly way.
We create awareness for the protection of water bodies and the environment from plastic and other harmful waste through events, community engagement and public communication. Because only when the global waste problem becomes visible will it be solved by everyone together.
