Several bags of plastic waste collected by the Library staff at this year’s Plastic Cup

Corvinus Library visited Tiszafüred with a team of ten people to participate in the fifth Tisza Lake Plastic Cup. They set off on their mission in three canoes and despite the disheartening amount of waste, the scorching sun and the mosquitoes, the participants returned home with positive experiences and a strong will to do something. 

The connection between PET Cup and Corvinus Library started earlier. Last autumn Zsolt Tamás, the organizer of the initiative, was invited to the European Waste Reduction Week programme at the library, where he discussed the future of sustainable packaging. We have written about it in detail in this article. 

In addition to the photos, a short personal report on the PET Cup program was also written by Ildikó Halász, which you can read here: 

Our library is committed to the environment – this is how I would like to start this story, because without it, this day would not have happened. In early spring, the Corvinus Library decided to volunteer for the 5th Lake Tisza PET Cup. We set out with a team of 10 people to clean Lake Tisza of as much waste as possible. 

All of us were determined to fight the plastic flood, so it was no problem for many of us to get up at 4am and take the 6am Agria Interregio train to Tiszafüred with one change. At the train station, the PET Cup organisers met us with a minibus and took us to the venue where the 19 PET boats and 79 canoes departed. 

Our library team took to the water with 3 canoes and 1 person helped at the campsite. Each of the three canoes was assigned a steersman who helped us to approach the tidal flats and land, as this was not an easy task. During our paddle, we loaded the collected bags onto the accompanying larger boat, where we were given fresh water, syrup, coffee and sweets. 

The route was Tiszafüred –> Tiszaszőlős, we paddled a total of 7 km for a common goal, to save the 50-year-old Lake Tisza’s wildlife, and OUR planet. We started at 10am from the Kormorán port and finished at 3pm when we arrived at the Aranyosi port in Tiszaszőlős.  

On a hot day, a mosquito filled flood plain, lots of plastic and glass bottles, pieces of styrofoam, rusty barrels (full of fuel which leaked), rubber wheels, rolling shopping bag wheels. It was a sobering sight for all of us to witness the damage humanity has done to the natural environment. 

Our team worked with great enthusiasm all the time, and thanks to the good atmosphere, the time flew by. We were enriched with an experience and the riverbank was cleaned of a couple of bags of waste. 

Our journey home was not without adventure either, as the train to Pest had an accident at Egerfarmos, the traffic was stopped for an indefinite period, so after some hesitation the team left for Eger by bus and from there by train to Keleti station. In the end we arrived in Budapest after a great day, with new strength and the belief that action must be taken, action is worth taking, that is our mission.  

We would like to thank the Library management for making this team-building day possible, the dedicated staff of the Library and last but not least the PET Cup, who for the fifth year in a row have organized this great 4-day initiative, which has been ranked among the best in the world for combating plastic pollution. Congratulations to them!

Halász Ildikó