Groups on the Danube are taking part for the first time. Andreas Fath, the chemistry professor at Furtwangen University, swam the Danube this summer – from Ulm to the Black Sea. On these 2700 kilometers, he and his team took every opportunity to promote the 1st DonauCleanUp. At the start in Ulm, the Baden-Württemberg Minister for the Environment, Thekla Walker, also jumped in (at the time) at the deep end. Like her colleagues in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse and her colleagues in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, she has taken over the patronage of our project, each for her federal state.