River Cleanup

TL/DR:

• 200.000+ volunteers
• Active in 96 countries
• Collected +3.4 million kilograms of River Waste
• Organized 4647 decentralized cleanups

🌊 Our vision: plastic-free rivers!

Since 2019, we have built a community of more than 200.000 volunteers, organized 4500+ events, and are active in 96 countries along 161 rivers. As a result, we permanently removed 3.4 million kg of waste from the environment, including 2.000.000+ kilograms of plastics.

--Indonesia--

Vision statement explained

When formulating our vision statement in 2021, we extensively discussed our desired vision for the future. What did we want to achieve ultimately? The answer was obvious: plastics have no place in our rivers, so rivers should be 100% free of macro and microplastics. While that's certainly ambitious, the alternative of not even trying to make rivers plastic-free didn't and still doesn't feel right. The costs for present and future generations of plastic pollution are simply too devastating.

At one point, going to the moon was also considered impossible, yet people went. Ambition does not blind our sense of realism, though. Making rivers plastic-free is a step-by-step process. It may not be achievable for all rivers in the world, but every piece of plastic we collect is removed forever. So, every km of river cleaned is a step in the right direction. And in the end, we may have to accept that some pollution is too difficult or costly to remove, but at least it's a well-thought-through decision and not merely a lack of effort.

Our solution: The Ripple Model

The Ripple Model is an open-source, ready-to-use, hands-on Theory of Change (ToC) by River Cleanup to make rivers plastic-free. How it works and what role we play are outlined in this summary.

Mission

River Cleanup is a global network organization stopping plastics from reaching our oceans by cleaning rivers, changing behavior, and transforming organizations.

--Ishem River, Albania--

Mission statement explained

River Cleanup aspires to be a global network. The notion of being a network organization is driven by the belief that we need more cooperation. No single entity can solve the problem alone; our strength is connecting people. 'Operational' network emphasizes the fact that we are action-driven and impact-focused. We plan to integrate more web3 tooling as our organization continues evolving in this fast moving space.

Values

1. Professional | 2. Inclusive | 3. Positive | 4. Ethical | 5. Impact-driven

Priorities

In addition to prioritizing holistic solutions to make rivers plastic-free, we also defined additional general priorities to direct our precious time and resources:

● Top 1000 most polluted rivers

In practice, we can and will support efforts to make other rivers plastic-free as well, but this is less of a priority because we have more impact focusing on these 1.000 rivers that account for 80% of the ocean plastic leakage.

● Macroplastics We focus our limited resources first and foremost on macroplastic pollution because of the following reasons: • Impact: by reducing macroplastic pollution, we stop new microplastic pollution • Efficiency: a single plastic can disintegrate into 10.000+ microplastics • Experience: we do not yet have extensive experience with microplastics

Workflow

The following workflow is integrated into the Theory of Change to enhance its practical use even further.

1. Assessment Everything starts with a holistic assessment of the pollution problem in and around the river (section). Points of attention include the type of pollution, environmental, socio-economic, and cultural (root) causes, volume, etc., as well as the feasibility of potential solutions in each of the three pillars: clean, educate, and transform.

2. Planning & Funding Based on this assessment, an action plan is made. In parallel, funding needs to be secured.

3. Implementation Local awareness-raising events and experiences create community buy-in for implementing clean, educate and transform activities.

4. Monitoring & Evaluation Careful monitoring and evaluation of pre-established output, outcome, and impact KPIs keep the implementation on track.

5. Celebrate Every success, big or small, is celebrated. Local action, global impact.

5 main pillars of the Ripple Model

1. Awareness raising

Generating awareness through a variety of activities and events, both at the local and the global level, is essential for three reasons:

1. Enthusiasm/sense of urgency to act
2. Solution (provider) awareness (enable people to learn about River Cleanup and partners)
3. A foundation for (local / river-level) system change (community buy-in is crucial for and through the implementation phase. Local-level awareness raising is something any organization that likes to work with this Ripple Model can do. In addition, river Cleanup can handle national and global awareness raising.

Examples of activities used (by River Cleanup) to raise awareness: River Cleanup Day, World Cleanup Day participation, River Cleanup World Challenge, company cleanups and inspiration sessions.

Impact onboarding

We are continously looking for incentives to bring mobilize and reward our particpants. Optimism based tools can play a vital role in strenghtening our community and reporting impact on chain

Douala, Cameroon

2. Assessment

Effectively and efficiently making a river plastic-free requires a thorough understanding of the local context and root causes of plastic pollution in a river (section). Thorough doesn't mean time-consuming, but it needs to be done well.

That is why this Theory of Change and any intervention River Cleanup supports or undertakes within River Cleanup 2.0 starts with a holistic assessment of a river (section) and the surrounding areas that may contribute to or influence plastic leakage into the river. This assessment is the basis for a solid action plan, which is important to secure financing and gain/maintain local stakeholder support.  

Components of the assessment

The assessment needs to be developed but is ideally a holistic (problem) assessment, looking at the problem and potential solutions from a legal, socio-economic, cultural, security, and environmental perspective. This includes:

• Basic information: area, country, population, security situation, languages spoken etc.

• Problem assessment: main types of plastics, volume (legacy/new), sources of mismanaged plastics, pollution hotspots on land and in the river, points of leakage, socio-economic/cultural drivers, the negative consequences for people, animals, and the environment etc.

• River parameters (length, source, rainfall, depth, tides, surface area, flood prove areas, tributaries etc.)

• Current interventions what has been done, when, locations, by whom, outcomes, reasons for success/failure etc.

• Stakeholder analyses: who are the key stakeholders (polluters, decision-makers, local solution providers), what is their current role in the local plastics value chain, what is their potential to contribute to solutions etc.

How to use the assessment

The assessment, over time, can become an online do-it-yourself tool for (local) organizations worldwide, integrated into the River Cleanup website, and a paid service by River Cleanup for (local) governments and/or nonprofits who prefer to have the assessment professionally done. Example workflow:

3. Clean

Plastic-free rivers can only be achieved by cleaning up plastic historic (legacy) plastic leakage. The preventive collection contributes to avoiding leakage. Once sorted, plastics are ready to go into the circular economy. Emergency interventions (in case of flooding) are high impact, rapid collection of plastics/waste on land and rivers to contain and remove plastic leakage.

Under clean, we distinguish five types of activities:

These are the main KPIs to monitor progress and measure the results of clean activities towards the desired overall impact:

Albania

4. Educate

The clean pillar takes care of the legacy plastic pollution and creates a temporary plastic-free environment. The educate and transform pillar focus on permanent plastic-free rivers. Primary and secondary schools and universities play an essential role in making and keeping rivers plastic-free in the short, medium, and long term. The education pillar within the Ripple Model fulfills three critical functions:

1. Gateway to communities
   Schools and universities are often at the heart of local communities. In combination with their role as safe spaces for learning, schools and universities are ideal access points to a community.

2. Direct impact & maximum lifetime impact (individual student) Through educational programs, children can immediately contribute to stopping leakage and start substituting, reducing, collecting, and reusing/recycling. Children have a lifetime of potential positive impact on plastic-free rivers ahead of them and are tomorrow's leaders and decision-makers.

3. Direct impact & community support (community) A student generally has a network of at least 2 to 5 family and community members that can be reached via the student and school. Educational programs also provide a basis for community buy-in to sustain longer-term support for clean and transform activities.

Belgium

Transform

People are the solution to plastic pollution in rivers. But for many people, this requires change. Transform translates as 'to change the form of something´, and the positive connotation it usually has is carried forward in this pillar of the Ripple Model. The transform pillar consists of two components that both deal with change but in different ways at different stages of the plastic life cycle. Structural change focuses on the part of the life cycle where plastics have not (yet) become waste. The circular economy component focuses on plastic waste once it has been sorted.

Component 1: Structural change

Inspiring & facilitating structural (behavior) change in people and organizations to maximize the substitution and reduction of (single use) plastics

Component 2: Circular economy

1. Collecting, sharing, and facilitating the implementation of existing and innovative circular economy solutions
2. Processing sorted plastics

Structural change explained

This structural change component of the transform pillar of the Ripple Model focuses on activities to inspire & facilitate structural (behavior) change in people and organizations to maximize the substitution and reduction of (single use) plastics.

Priorities

• For maximum impact, we focus primarily (but not only) on substitution/reduction of consumer single-use plastics (also in line with BtPW), as these are the most significant contributors to plastic river/ocean pollution.

• The primary target audience is the general public.

• Single-use plastics in company production processes are not a primary focus because this kind of substitution/reduction is often highly specific and requires a different approach from company to company.

Circular economy explained

In the clean pillar, we focus on collecting and sorting plastics. But what to do with these plastics once sorted? Everyone working on the problem of plastic pollution faces that same question. Instead of answering this question ourselves, we share the results and insights.

1. Maintain/prolong the use
2. Reuse / redistribute
3. Refurbish/remanufacture
4. Mechanical recycling (washing/shredding)
5. Chemical conversion
6. Safe (leakage-free) disposal
7. Incineration (as a final last resort) Put differently, solutions to maintain and prolong the use of plastics in their original shape are preferred. If that's not possible, we look at reuse or redistribution options. If that's not possible, refurbishing, and remanufacturing options, etc. By maximizing each preferred solution, we ensure that the maximum percentages of plastics are processed in the best possible manner.

General Impact KPIs

Activities result in outputs, outcomes, and, eventually, these three desired impacts. Each impact KPI is subdivided into three performance levels. The lowest level, level one, corresponds with macro/micro plastic-free rivers (negligible amount). The intervention area can be a part of a river, e.g., 1 km, and does not have to be a whole river at once. Therefore, a river can vary in score depending on the section.

Contribution to SDGs

Making rivers plastic-free directly contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Breaking the Plastic Wave has quantified the System Change Scenario's contribution to nine SDGs. In addition, we have added SDG 17 to the Ripple Model because of the crucial role partnerships play in making rivers plastic-free.