Tons of rubbish pulled up from seabeds during Voi’s Nordic spring cleaning tour

Over the past weeks, Voi has been on a Nordic spring cleaning tour together with our riders and partnering NGO’s. Tons of litter has been pulled out of seabeds during clean-up events in Sweden and Denmark.  

Voi teamed up with local NGO’s in the Nordics in a bid to clean up our cities and raise awareness around the environmental issue with litter not just on streets but also in seabeds. The Nordic spring cleaning tour aims to inspire people to feel a stronger sense of collective responsibility for keeping our cities free from litter. 

In Sweden, Voi teamed up with the Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation to support its annual Nordic Coastal Cleanup day earlier in May. Voi supported by inviting all its users in Sweden and encouraging employees to join. This contributed to seeing some 55,000 signing up for the event; an all-time high. In addition, people who signed up for the event in Voi cities were offered a free 24h Voi pass to enable them to clean a larger area.

“We want to contribute to Keep Sweden Tidy´s important work, raising awareness about the big issue of littering in seabeds. That’s why we promoted this event to all our users in Sweden,” said Eric André, General Manager Sweden & Denmark at Voi.

Voi also arranged an event in Stockholm in collaboration with the NGO Rena Mälaren, to pull litter from the seabed at Södermälarstrand. Several divers and more than 20 volunteers helped to pull up 3 tons of litter from the water.

“It’s outrageous that all of this litter ends up in the sea”, said Voi’s Marketing Specialist Fredrika Jarnvall who participated in the event. “Out of the 3 tons pulled up from the water, we found 1,5 tons of car tyres, 160 kg of batteries, and even TV’s and toilets.” 

Voi’s VP Comms Kristina Hunter Nilsson together with a diver and Fredrik Johansson, the founder of Rena Mälaren.

A couple of weeks earlier, Voi teamed up with the Danish organisations Os Om Havet and GoDive for a clean-up event in Aarhus, where 1,247 kg of litter was recovered from the harbour and the streets. In Copenhagen, Voi collaborated with By og Havn (the Port of Copenhagen) to collect the scooters from different providers they pulled up from the canals during their annual Spring Cleaning.

The issue with vandalism and people throwing e-scooters in the sea is something that Voi unfortunately has experienced over the last years. However, it’s becoming less common, but when it happens Voi’s operations team collects the scooters as soon as possible.

“Working in Operations at Voi, we ensure that any scooter reported as missing is thoroughly searched for. Sometimes that means we locate them in the water, but our local Voi team are pros at rescuing these scooters. Most of the time, we’re able to pull them out of the water with a hook, but diving events like these allow us to look for scooters in tricky areas,” said Voi’s Operations Associate Elisabeth Wurmser who participated in the event.

Erik André said that Voi is collaborating with diving organisations in all Nordic countries to collect scooters thrown into the sea. Voi is also taking action to prevent the scooters from ending up in the water in the first place. 

“We are using geofencing technology to implement No Parking Zones near the water in all our cities, making it impossible for users to end their rides there,” said Eric André. “However, it’s also important to educate people on the issues of rubbish that ends up in the sea.” 

Voi teamed up with Os Om Havet and GoDive for a clean-up event in Aarhus. Foto: Mick Friis

1,247 kg of litter was recovered from the harbour and the streets in Aarhus. Foto: Mick Friis