Whether cigarette butts, disposable cups or plastic packaging? no waste is safe from Robert and Julie Bausenwein. The father-daughter team from Höchberg has set itself the goal of clearing the paths on the Main in the Würzburg region of rubbish.
The voluntary project is therefore called “Maincleanup”, in German for “Mainsäuberung”. Several times a month, the two are on the road and fill sack after sack with other people’s rubbish. What they find is often disgusting, often annoying, but sometimes also dangerous.
Armed with gloves and buckets
The duo also set off one afternoon in May. While students relax on the Main, families go for walks and enjoy the sun, work begins for Robert and Julie. Your goal: You want to clear around 300 meters of rubbish along the banks of the Main, from Heidingsfeld to the Main lock in Randersacker.
The two are equipped with gloves, buckets, garbage grabs and blue safety vests. “Maincleanup ?? Everyone can do something” is written on the back. While Julie is leading the way, her 45-year-old father pulls a converted wagon behind him.
The garbage never gets less, there is always something to do
This includes: more buckets, an empty laundry tub and plastic bags ?? for garbage, broken glass and returnable bottles that the two collect during the clean-up operation. The garbage bags that the Bausenweins use are made from recycled plastic. “This way there is no new waste,” explains Robert Bausenwein.
The two of them now collect rubbish every Sunday, always on a different route along the Main. They are usually on the road for around two hours. So far they have always been successful because “the garbage never gets less”.
The impetus for the project came from Julie, reports her father. What was actually intended as a school project? inspired by the “RhineCleanUp”, a clean-up campaign along the Rhine ?? could not be implemented due to Corona. But the 21-year-old did not want to be deterred and took the action together with her father into her own hands.
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“The garbage does not stay in the Main, but the river drives it on until it ends up in the sea at some point.”
Julie Bausenwein, initiator of the “Maincleanup” project–
“The rubbish does not stay in the Main, but the river drives it on until it ends up in the sea at some point,” says Julie, explaining her incentive as she drops plastic packaging into her bucket with her rubbish gripper. On the way there, the waste is not only a danger to the animals, the environment is also suffering from the pollution.
“Over the years, some types of plastic dissolve into tiny pieces that you can never get out of the water,” notes Robert Bausenwein, and picks up another tattered plastic piece. The two of them not only collect the rubbish on the way, but also remove the rubbish directly on the banks of the Main and in the surrounding meadows and bushes off the road.
The closer you look, the more rubbish you discover
A twig is caught in Julie’s hair and Robert Bausenwein has to be careful not to get scratched while he is pushing his way through the bushes. The work is exhausting because some garbage has been lying on and next to the paths for years. A tangle of old strings stuck deep in the ground? the 45-year-old kneels down and digs up his find with his hands.
“You get a completely different view of things. After a while, you notice garbage that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise,” says Julie. With her rubbish pince-nez she reaches for cigarette butts, the color of which barely contrasts with the floor of the path. “But then you always see it and you can’t stop collecting it.”
The oldest packaging is from 1969
In addition to the plastic particles, the cigarette butts are particularly bad for the environment, reports Robert, as they contaminate several liters of water. In contrast to leftover food or paper, which rot over time, a lot of rubbish lies unnoticed along the paths for years.
The oldest waste they have found so far was butter packaging with the best before date of 1969, recalls Robert Bausenwein. The two cannot undercut that this afternoon. The oldest packaging that ended up in the bucket that day is empty gummy bear packaging, which expired in 2017.
“The water is receding. But the rubbish that was previously in the Main remains on the bank.”
Robert Bausenwein, initiator of the “Maincleanup” campaign–
“Be careful not to fall into the water,” the 21-year-old calls out to her father as he carefully climbs down the embankment. After every flood, the Main washes new rubbish onto the bank, he explains. “The water is receding. But the rubbish that was previously in the Main remains on the bank.”
“Maincleanup” is also active in social media
The Bausenweins post about their clean-up campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. “I want to raise people’s awareness with it. Not everyone has to do as much as we do,” says the 45-year-old. “But it helps a lot if you take your own rubbish back with you.”
Whether a toilet bowl or an armrest from the car that someone threw into the bushes? Sometimes you have to smile at strange finds, says Julie. But in addition to the curiosities, there is now and then also dangerous waste, says the Höchberger. Once he found used syringes in a bush away from the path. “This is particularly dangerous for small children and dogs.”
Broken glass all over the bank
The Bausenweins have now reached the end of the road. The largest mountain of rubbish lies on the bank in front of the Randersacker lock. It looks like someone was throwing a multi-person party there.
In addition to a dozen returnable bottles, the fragments of a vodka bottle are distributed within a radius of several meters along the entire bank. Julie has to look very carefully because most of them are between the stones and plants.
Sometimes people lose their rubbish without even realizing it, says Bausenwein. The 45-year-old is convinced that the mountain of rubbish at the lock was intentionally left behind. “It’s just a cheek, it really annoys me.” The father-daughter team then set about cleaning up the last part of the path with renewed zest for action.
After about two hours, the two start their way back to the car. The formerly empty handcart is filled with three garbage bags of 120 liters each and a laundry tub, full to the brim with other people’s rubbish.
The Bausenweins dispose of the filled sacks after the clean-up operation together with a labeled cardboard box. It says that the garbage was collected on a voluntary basis and will not be disposed of indiscriminately. The proceeds from the returnable bottles will go to the Würzburger Tafel, according to Robert Bausenwein.
The two do not yet know where the next “main cleanup” campaign will take place. For the summer it was originally planned to free the state horticultural show grounds from cigarette butts with the help of volunteers. However, it is not yet certain whether this will work due to Corona. That afternoon, however, Julie is satisfied with the day’s yield: “It’s a good feeling to go and know that you’ve done something good for the environment.”
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