On a mission to clean rivers

Encouraged by River Cleanup, over 300 volunteers took care of the banks and waters of the Brussels Canal and 87 cleanups are underway in 33 countries.

In July 2021, exceptional rainfall caused the Vesder and Ourthe rivers to overflow. The resulting floods caused unprecedented destruction, leaving both people and nature distressed. Three years after the floods in Wallonia, River Cleanup volunteers are rolling up their sleeves one last time. After 240 clean-up efforts, the job is finally completed.

BLOG: January 2024, we visited one of our key projects in Bandung to confirm the location to test the Clean River Model. We joined the daily actions, felt the energy of the River Cleanup School program and discussed the further implementation of our Clean River Model with the local government and policy makers.

29/06/2023 - The Waste Watchers project engages citizens to use drones to photograph the river Scheldt's banks. Artificial Intelligence then detects where most of the litter is located. This VITO and River Cleanup research project is a world first, the first time the wider public is involved by using their drones to identify litter.

World Cleanup Day took place on Saturday, 16 September, involving millions of volunteers in more than 191 countries who joined forces to clean up litter. River Cleanup, a Belgian non-profit organization that cleans up rivers worldwide to prevent plastics from reaching our oceans, organized more than 66 cleanup campaigns around the globe, including three in this country. In Belgium, approximately 427 volunteers rolled up their sleeves for 1020 kilos of cleared litter.

We are challenging people around the world to pick up litter for 10 minutes from April 22nd (Earth Day) to June 8th (World Ocean Day). Everyone is invited to go outside and get stuck in, looking for litter near rivers or on streets, or any other place with lots of roadside litter.