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Hungarian Wages One-man Campaign Against Floating Garbage in River

Reuters

   TISZAFURED, HUNGARY - Bence Pardy spent his summers as a child by
   Hungary's second main river, the Tisza.

   Now, at 32, he has given up his job to move back there permanently to
   collect plastic waste which pollutes its waters.

   The Tisza, one of the main rivers in eastern Europe, starts in Ukraine
   and flows across Hungary to join the Danube in Serbia. It then flows
   eastwards to empty into the Black Sea.

   Over the past three months, working all day on his own from a small
   motorboat, Pardy has collected by hand plastic bottles from the river
   and its floodplains to fill 466 huge binbags.

   In many places there are floating waste islands made up of plastic
   bottles already overgrown with lush vegetation.

   "We used to have a house in a nearby small village and came here for
   the summers. There was no waste at that time... there wasn't this craze
   for plastic plates and forks," Pardy said, picking empty bottles and
   plastic bags from the grass and trees hanging over the slow-moving
   river.

   He worked as a waiter in Budapest before he moved to Tiszafured, a town
   nearby, and now lives in a small caravan. As his money was running out,
   he launched a social media campaign to raise funds for the project.

   During another large-scale initiative, which he also joined, volunteers
   removed more than 11 tons of waste from the Tisza this summer, Pardy
   said.

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