Green Kayak

The world has a plastic problem - and it’s floating around in our oceans. Scientists estimate there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the seas. If we don’t do anything, litter particles could outnumber fish by 2050. Not if GreenKayak has anything to do with it, though. This rapidly growing, Danish-run NGO is encouraging people to remove litter from the water – by turning it into a fun activity. 

The idea started by accident back in 2017, when Tobias Weber-Andersen, a keen diver, windsurfer and sailor, had had enough of encountering trash in the water and decided to do something about it. At that time he was the owner of a kayakrental company on Copenhagen harbour, so he designated one of his kayaks a “miljøkajakken” (“environmental kayak”), offering it to people for free, in return for all the litter they could collect. 

“We started at the beginning of the summer season in Denmark and right away it was fully booked,” Weber-Andersen remembers. “Over the first five months we had almost 1,000 people using it and collected more than three tonnes of trash. We saw that and said, ‘Woah! Let’s do this even more.’” 

Two years on, GreenKayak is now his full-time job, and this year the charity expanded outside Denmark for the first time – with “host” schemes in Hamburg, Bergen, Stockholm, Berlin and Dublin. “Last year we had just three kayaks in Denmark,” says Weber-Andersen, “while now there are 38 in five different countries,” saving more than 17 tonnes of waste to date. “It’s really working.”

Wannabe watery eco-warriors simply book the use of a kayak – online at greenkayak.org or directly with one of the hosts – for two free hours of use. As the sit-on-top boats are “very safe and very easy to steer”, even accompanied kids can join in. All tools are provided, “and all the rubbish in the water has been washed clean so people don’t get their hands dirty”.

Participants honour their side of the bargain by picking up litter from the water, and by posting on social media afterwards using #greenkayak – both things people seem very happy to do. “We thought we might have to take a deposit but it wasn’t needed,” says Weber-Anderson, full of praise for the honest and eager response. “Everyone participates. Some people even come back with a full basket and then go get some more.” 

Thanks to the social-media drive, he now has a long list of hosts who want to bring the GreenKayak concept to their own shores. After fielding calls “from the US, Asia, Australia,” his ambition to “make GreenKayak global” is clearly in sight. Better still, he finally feels like he’s doing something to help the natural world by providing others with the tools they need to help, too. 

“It fills me with hope when I see volunteers pulling trash from the water,” he says. “They’re showing the world that tackling environmental pollution is fun and easy to do.” 
Source: n by Norwegian, September 2019