On 14 April at 10 a.m., best-selling crime novel author Andreas Winkelmann and actor Markus Knüfken will start their big fundraising campaign Big-Biking-Cleanup in Hamburg.

Using electrified cargo bikes, the two friends plan to cover 7,600 km of North Sea and Baltic Sea coastline in three months to rid beaches of plastic waste and collect donations for ONE EARTH – ONE OCEAN e.V. and its maritime waste collection service.

During their journey, Winkelmann and Knüfken will travel through nine countries: Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. They will pitch their tents near the coast, collect what has no place in nature, weigh and document the waste and transport it on their cargo bikes to the nearest recycling centre or waste collection point.

On Instagram, Facebook and their website bigbikingcleanup.com, you can follow them throughout the tour and follow the progress of their fundraising campaign. The goal is to collect 20,000 euros for a new waste collection boat, a so-called SeeHamster, which ONE EARTH – ONE OCEAN e.V. will use to free rivers in Egypt, Cambodia or Indonesia from plastic waste and also create local jobs.

“This gives environmental protection a social component and makes it a successful project,” say Winkelmann and Knüfken, who have already experienced several extraordinary outdoor adventures, which they reported on in their book “Wilder wird’s nicht” (“It won’t get any wilder”).

In mid-July, the two activists want to be back in Hamburg to hand over the collected donations to ONE EARTH – ONE OCEAN e.V.. For this, Andreas Winkelmann will even celebrate the release of his new thriller “Das Letzte, was Du hörst” (The Last Thing You Hear), which will be published in mid-June, on a bicycle.

We at oeoo would like to thank Andreas and Markus for their engagement and wish them a safe and pleasant journey!

We will keep you informed about the tour…