Magyar Suzuki’s Marine Group cleaned the Sóderos Bay of several bags of rubbish

Magyar Suzuki’s Marine Group celebrated Earth Day in Esztergom with environmental education for schoolchildren and a joint waste collection. As part of the Clean-Up the World campaign, Magyar Suzuki's Marine Group invited 9th grade students from the Temesvári Pelbárt Ferences Secondary to the event, where they collected several bags of litter in the green belt area.

Suzuki Motor Corporation's Marine Division launched its environmental protection programmes under the name Suzuki Clean Ocean Project in 2010. The project rests on three pillars: cleaning up the sea and fresh waters from waste materials litter through Clean-Up the World waste collection campaigns, reducing plastics packaging, and collecting micro-plastics waste from water with Suzuki’s purpose-designed Micro-Plastic Collecting Device (MPC) installed on outboard motors.

Since 2010, Clean-Up the World Campaign has involved more than 17,000 volunteers in cleaning up seas, rivers and lakes around the world.

Magyar Suzuki’s Marine Group has joined this programme and this year has chosen the popular fishing spot "Sódergödör" near Esztergom-Tát - a wild green area next to the Little and Big Danube  - as the target of its waste collecting campaign. On 22nd April, company staff and two classes of schoolchildren collected litter and rubbish washed ashore during the river's flooding.

The programme was truly interactive. In addition to the waste collection, the students could hear exciting presentations on environmental and water protection. Zsolt Osvald, president of the Komárom-Esztergom County Fishing Association, talked to the students about the purpose of Earth Day, the Danube, aquatic life and the importance of water. Fruzsina Majer, a professor at the Faculty of Water Sciences in Baja, gave a presentation on water pollution, water cleanliness, waste management, waste recycling and microplastics in water. She demonstrated what she had said on the spot: in an experiment with the children, she showed the presence of microplastics in domestic waters.

During the programme, Magyar Suzuki’s Marine Group took special care to ensure that the event was environmentally friendly: the children were served lunch in recyclable plates and cutlery, local subcontractors were involved in the catering, thus reducing CO2 emissions from transport, and at the end of the programme the students received a canteen made of recycled plastic.