Zero Waste Tisza program has won an international PR award

In the summer of 2019, Coca‑Cola Hungary committed to clean Tisza, the second longest river in Hungary, partnering with the water management directorate and an NGO. The Zero Waste Tisza program, supported by The Coca‑Cola Foundation with HUF 73 million, focuses on removing plastic pollution from the river and accumulated garbage from the floodplain; these goals are also supported by volunteer actions of Coca‑Cola Hungary.

Together with the PET Cup, the main objective of the two-year-long Zero Waste Tisza program is to collect and recycle at least 80 tons of waste. So far, the company has collected more than 49 tons of waste with the PET Cup.

Beyond financial support, Coca‑Cola Hungary also organized three volunteer days with the participation of 170 colleagues in total. Besides the great waste collection in the summer, the volunteers also cleaned particularly polluted, environmentally important areas during the year, such as Natura 2000 forests – these actions were coordinated by the PET Cup.

The program continues in 2020. Experts of the PET Cup let PET bottles equipped with GPS into the river, with the help of the Upper Tisza Diving and Lifeguard Organization. The four bottles thrown into the flooding Tisza at Vásárosnamény are helping the PET Cup’s waste monitoring program. During the tracking research, the bottles receive GPS signals and transmit radio signals. The devices developed within the Zero Waste Tisza project can help to track the waste’s path that floats on the river for up to two years.

Coca‑Cola Hungary and its partners will hold the program’s next volunteer day of on the 18th of September 2020.

This is not the only award the company has won with the program: it had been already granted awards from an international competition, the Communitas Awards and The Hungarian Business Leaders Forum’s Business world for the Environment Award.