PETényi Junk-eating Junk-boat

Despite our heart beating for the Danube, we also care for the Tisza. PETényi, the junk-eating junk-boat was constructed in Valyo’s workshop upon a request by the organizers of the PLASTIC Cup. The boat itself was partly built by recycled materials, since it’s the PET bottles caught from the Tisza and filled with air that keep it floating.

 

PETényi’s mission is to escort PET pirates every year during PLASTIC Cup organized on the Tisza since 2013, and to store temporarily the collected plastic bottles. It contributed to their successes which meant liberating the river from 8 tons of junk in 2017, and in 2018- 2019 10 tons of junk respectively, a multiplication of the amounts of previous years.

 

Some technical details: the base of the boat is a steel structure welded of 8 modules containing thousands of air-filled, recycled plastic bottles. It is driven by a 10 horsepower, petrol-fuelled engine, but later we plan to switch to an electric engine powered by solar panels. The wooden bodywork made of collecting nets is suitable for collecting and transporting tons of waste. Designed by Dávid Kornai-Varga (Valyo) and Botond Molnár (Természetfilm.hu).

 

The staff of Valyo also takes an active part in the operations through collecting waste and offering coffee or refreshments to the weary PET pirates, and by doing so they have been boosting the PLASTIC Cup on the Tisza since 2017.