As is well known, environmental and water protection are close to our hearts here at SUP Atlas, which is why we regularly organize cleanup efforts. One of our favorite spots in Carinthia, the Wernberg River Loop, had been on our to-do list for quite some time, as there are quite a few car tires in the water in the middle of this nearly untouched oxbow lake of the Drava River. Since this old section of the river no longer has a direct connection to the main channel, it’s highly unlikely that the trash was washed here by a strong current and settled in the shallow water.
It’s more likely that someone dumped their old car tires right in the middle of this peaceful fishing oasis without giving any thought to the environmental consequences. Unfortunately, there are still people who seem not to care about their own environment. That’s why we’re heading out today to restore cleanliness while also enjoying this beautiful place.
Who knows how many tires and other objects are buried here in deeper, out-of-sight areas, but at least we can easily recover everything that’s visible in the shallows. Car tires also tend to accumulate mud and clay on their inner surfaces, which literally presses them into the ground. It can take quite a bit of force to pull them out of the clay. Their weight and the water they’ve collected then do the rest to increase the downward pull.
In addition, the tires have since become home to small shellfish, which can easily cause cuts if you try to remove or handle them with your bare hands. We try to brush the little crustaceans off, but of course quite a few stick to the rubber — they probably won’t survive. It’s a small price to pay for dozens of kilos less trash.
With work gloves and water shoes, however, this is easy to manage, and we pull a total of 11 car tires and a gas can filled with mud out of the river. For safety reasons, we don’t load too many tires onto each SUP, since it still needs to be stable enough to navigate. Our SUP-tire shuttle to the shore needs to be stable enough to ensure that no tire falls off the SUP during the trip to the launch site and sinks irrevocably back into the deep water — otherwise, all our work would have been for nothing.
Fortunately, however, there isn’t any more trash lying around here, so with very little effort we’re able to clean up the river loop and hand over the trash to the municipality of Wernberg along the Slow Trail. They will arrange for its pickup and proper disposal.
With that in mind, we would like to thank the municipality of Wernberg for its cooperation and for organizing the waste disposal. A big thank you also goes to the news site 5 Minutes Villach and the newspaper Kleine Zeitung Villach for their coverage, in the hope that more people will be inspired to take proactive steps to help protect the environment.
Checklist for organizing your own cleanup campaign
- Get sponsors (municipality, waste associations, (water) rescue)
- Reward participants with goodies, small sweepstakes, or a shared meal afterward
- Obtain permits if necessary
- Advertise before and after the campaign (newspaper, TV, social media, homepage, blog)
- Ensure logistics (transport, disposal, work materials)
- Inspect the water in advance so that there are no unplanned problems
- Divide the paddlers into search teams based on their paddle experience and area characteristics
- Provide participants with buoyancy aids
- It's best to paddle on large all-round boards (space, stability, turning ability)
- Maintain ongoing contact with everyone involved during the campaign to be able to react quickly to emergencies or to dispose of bulky goods quickly and safely
- Continually monitor weather and water conditions
- Pay attention to the seasons: depending on where you want to carry out the cleanup, it is best to do it between spring and late summer or outside the rainy season and, of course, not during the typhoon season
Super dass ihr das macht!