In spring 2025, the Plastic Pirates were active on the Danube River once again. School classes and extracurricular youth groups were invited to collect their own data on plastic pollution and get to know the Danube better as an important habitat and transport route. The aim of the campaign was to raise young people's environmental awareness and give them a hands-on approach to scientific work. Participation was free of charge.

Young people as researchers

In the project, children and young people took on the role of scientists. Equipped with an activity booklet, collection bags and instruction materials, they collected plastic waste on riverbanks, categorised the finds and documented them systematically. In this way, they learned about scientific methods practically – from observing and measuring to analysing data. Their active participation raised their environmental awareness and gave them an insight into socially relevant future issues such as environmental pollution and resource conservation.

The Danube as a European lifeline

With a length of over 2,800 kilometres, the Danube was the second-longest river in Europe and an important transport route and habitat. At the same time, it transported large quantities of waste – all the way to the Black Sea. This was exactly where the Plastic Pirates came in: They investigated how much plastic waste accumulated on various stretches of riverbank in the Danube river basin and where it could have come from. The Europe-wide standardised methodology allowed the collected data to be compared across countries and scientifically analysed.

From data collection to the search for solutions

More than 2,700 data sets (as of 2025) on the occurrence of plastic waste were collected in this way. The data collected in the project was fed into a central European research platform. There they were analysed together with results from 13 other countries by scientists. The aim was to gain a better understanding of how plastic waste entered the oceans via rivers – and how this process could be stopped. The results helped to develop well-founded measures to prevent waste and provided political decision-makers with recommendations for action.

European commitment to clean waters

Plastic Pirates – Go Europe was a joint citizen science initiative of European countries that was launched in Germany in 2016 and rolled out across Europe from 2022 onwards with the support of the EU Commission. The campaign not only promoted scientific knowledge, but also raised young people's awareness of the value of rivers and seas as the basis of life. The campaign in the Danube region that year was sponsored by the Ferry Porsche Foundation, which was committed to social engagement in education, the environment and science.