ARBURG once again supports "swimming professor" in passion project

The 1,083-kilometre "swimming pool" stretched from the source of the Elbe, or Smirice in the Czech Giant Mountains, to the mouth of the Elbe in Cuxhaven. Professor Andreas Fath reached his destination after just 25 days and an average of 46 kilometres and eight hours of swimming per day. Along the way, he and his team took daily water samples, which were scientifically analysed for things such as microplastic content. The wetsuit he wore in the water was also particularly interesting as it had a filter membrane attached to it that imitated fish skin and provided additional information on water quality.

More about the project

Professor Andreas Fath has already swum several thousand kilometres in a number of large transnational rivers. His motivation in a nutshell is "clean water." The goal is ambitious: of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic that humans have already produced worldwide to date, only nine percent has been recycled so far. To put it another way: far too much plastic waste and microplastics are still ending up in rivers, lakes and oceans around the world instead of being collected and recycled. This is why large-scale campaigns are important alongside the marathon swim. Along the route, workshops, seminars and lectures are held, press events and clean-ups organised, films about the projects shown and, with Fath's "knowledge workshop", simple and easy-to-understand experiments with water carried out to motivate as many people as possible to take a stand for the protection of this important life source.

During the swimming marathon down the Elbe, Professor Dr Andreas Fath's non-profit company H2Org was supported by the Plastic-Free Nature Alliance (Bündnis plastikfreie Natur) as a cooperation partner. The main sponsors were companies ARBURG and Hansgrohe as well as Furtwangen University. The project attracted a great deal of attention in major German cities such as Dresden, Leipzig and Hamburg. The reception committee in Hamburg included Managing Director Gerhard Böhm and Vice President Global Marketing Dr Christoph Schumacher, both from ARBURG, as well as Hansgrohe CEO Hans-Jürgen Calmbach and Rector Dr Alexandra Bormann from Furtwangen University. "After "cleandanube", "pureelbe" is now the second successful project in which we have been very happy to support our brand ambassador," says Dr Christoph Schumacher. "Our sponsorship underscores our company's commitment to sustainable production. For many years now, we have been bringing together our activities relating to resource conservation and the circular economy in the "arburgGREENworld" program. We are working hard to reduce the carbon footprint of our machines in production and use by customers and to advance the processing of recycled materials."