International Danube Day – Challenges of plastic waste in the Danube region and beyond. Let’s act together!

International Danube Day partners
Start/End date
Event type
Country
Hungary
City
Budapest
Key Area

“Empty plastic bottles, mixed with other waste, are dumped year by year on the river banks and are flushed downstream during flood events. This pollution could be highly visible resulting in curtains of plastic on riparian vegetation. Plastic waste also could be buried on the floodplains by fluvial sediments, or microparticulation poses an invisible threat for the wildlife and for humans. In all respects that has resulted in cross-border complaints from downstream countries. The signs of this pollution are intensely present throughout the whole Tisza basin and reach the main Danube River where this plastic waste can also be seen in the main protected areas of the Danube Delta and has an impact on the Black Sea environment.” The problem is recognised all over the world, but there is still a lack of effective and well-organised actions to drastically reduce waste pollution. What is the situation globally and what are the policy measures in EU level to overcome problems? How river basin districts are feeding the Adriatic and the Black Seas’ Region with plastic waste? The Danube Day event, supported by the DTP JOINTISZA project, aims to call the attention to growing problem of plastic waste pollution and it also offers a networking platform to those actively involved in policy and NGO level to find joint solutions toward the reduction of the emerging waste problem. As a follow-up outcome of the event the intention is to draft possible solutions and outline measures in the updated Integrated Tisza River Basin Management Plan which is now under development in the frame of the DTP JOINTISZA project.