1,000 plastic-free rivers: can a citizen movement deliver?

What begins as a simple gesture can become something far bigger.

In 2019, Belgian social entrepreneur Thomas de Groote launched River Cleanup with an ambitious idea: not just to remove waste from rivers, but to help make 1,000 rivers sustainably plastic-free.

In collaboration with Ashoka Belgium, this conversation looks behind the headlines of “cleanup” and asks the harder questions: What does it take to build a movement that scales? How do you turn public goodwill into measurable change? And how do you keep purpose intact while working with institutions, partners, and the messy realities of the real world?

Expect an honest look at leadership, mobilisation, and what modern entrepreneurship can do when it is driven by something more than profit.