TeSzedd 2026 registration: volunteers can sign up from 8 September

TeSzedd 2026 registration opens on 8 September, according to an announcement by László Gajdos, Hungary’s minister responsible for the living environment. Volunteers can once again sign up for the country’s largest waste collection movement, whose action week runs from 12 to 18 October 2026. The news matters more than usual, because this spring – for the first time in the programme’s history – the campaign was not announced at all, making this effectively a relaunch.

This article covers what exactly the minister announced, how you can sign up, the difference between the coordinator and volunteer roles, and what first-time participants should know.

What did László Gajdos announce?

In a video posted on his social media page, the minister confirmed that sign-ups open on 8 September for the TeSzedd! – Voluntarily for a Clean Hungary campaign. The action week runs from 12 to 18 October 2026, with registration handled through szelektalok.hu.

The timing works in several ways: 12 October is a Monday and the 18th a Sunday, so a full week is available, including two weekend days. School groups find weekdays easier, while families and workplace teams can usually only move at the weekend – a Monday-to-Sunday window accommodates both. The autumn date also has a practical consequence: leaves are already falling in mid-October, so on deeper ditch banks and woodland edges it is worth collecting early in the week, while the waste is still visible.

Gajdos has led the environmental ministry – re-established as a standalone portfolio – since 13 May. At his parliamentary committee hearing he already signalled that well-functioning programmes, including TeSzedd! and environmental education initiatives, would not be dismantled. This announcement is the first concrete step in that direction.

The context gives the announcement additional weight. The usual April action week never started this spring: no information appeared on the teszedd.hu site, no advance sign-up opened, and in March a written parliamentary question was submitted to the then energy minister about the gap. The movement is therefore restarting after a missed season – and doing so in autumn, which is not unprecedented: in 2021 the action week ran from 18 to 24 October, with sign-ups opening on 20 September.

TeSzedd 2026 registration: when and where to sign up

The process follows the practice of previous years. TeSzedd 2026 registration runs through szelektalok.hu, the site shown in the announcement video, where coordinators create their own accounts to publish meeting points and volunteers pick from the points already listed.

The registration platform went live on 8 September, the day of the announcement. The familiar regisztracio.szelektalok.hu address now redirects to a working system where accounts can be created immediately. Anyone who saw a maintenance message in the early hours can try again.

The platform is an account-based system rather than a simple form, so it helps to know what’s coming:

1. Registration. Participant sign-up starts with an email address and a password.
2. Email confirmation. The system sends a verification code to the address given. Its own warning says this can take up to three minutes, so don’t start the registration over if nothing arrives instantly.
3. Choosing your role. After logging in you decide whether to create a new meeting point as a coordinator or join an existing one as a volunteer.
4. Search by settlement. Volunteers can filter published meeting points by town – the fastest route for anyone who just wants to take part.

Two details that save time: the system allows login from only one browser at a time (it will log you out elsewhere), and you have to accept the privacy policy to enter. The link to the general terms of participation is already on the platform, but the document does not yet open – anyone after the detailed legal conditions should check back in a few days.

Things worth sorting out early:

• Don’t wait for the deadline. Once coordinator registration closes, no new meeting point can be created, and volunteers can only join existing ones. If nobody in your area announces a site, you are the person without whom no collection will happen.
• Agree on the location in advance. Collection can take place on both public and private land; the latter requires the owner’s consent.
• Check who else would collect. A school class, a workplace team, a sports club, a residential community – most successful sites are built on an existing community rather than a recruitment campaign.

Coordinator or volunteer – what’s the difference?

There are two ways to join, and the workload is very different.

As a volunteer you pick an already published meeting point, show up at the stated time, sign the attendance sheet, collect your equipment and get to work. That’s it. If you simply want to take part, this is the route.

As a coordinator you are the one publishing the meeting point: you choose the location and time, give a short briefing on the process and safety rules before collection starts, hand out gloves, bags and ties, and make sure the full, sealed bags end up at a designated spot that is accessible along a paved road. Transport isn’t your job, but the logistics of gathering the bags are.

One practical detail many people get wrong: the meeting point and the collection site don’t have to be identical, but they should be close together. If the team has to walk twenty minutes to the site, most of the enthusiasm is spent before the work begins.

One step is mandatory for volunteers too, yet half of them skip it: before the collection day you must contact the coordinator of your chosen point. This isn’t a formality, since the exact collection site is always determined by them.

What organisers expect from coordinators

This is where most of the pre-sign-up knowledge sits, because these things cannot be fixed afterwards:

• A team of at least ten. A coordinator creates a new meeting point as the representative of a group of at least 10 people.
• Open or closed point. Anyone can join an open point as a volunteer; the details of a closed point aren’t even visible to others. For school and company teams, closed is the logical choice.
• Equipment delivery address. Registration requires an address where you can receive gloves, bags and ties during working hours. Getting the equipment to the site is the coordinator’s job.
• Safety briefing and attendance sheet. A short briefing must be held before collection starts, and participants must sign the attendance sheet.
• Report within one day. After the campaign you must report on the platform, within one day, exactly where and how many bags were left.
• Removal within ten days. Once the report is filed, collection may happen the next day and is expected within ten days. If it doesn’t, report it to info@teszedd.hu.

Two traps are easy to fall into. The report locks the quantity: the contractor collects only from the reported location and only the reported number of bags, so filing the report and then putting out more bags is pointless – don’t leave the counting to guesswork. And if you run out of branded bags, other bags may be used, but this must be stated in the report or they will be left behind.

The rules also prepare for a less pleasant scenario: if someone illegally dumps a large amount of waste next to your bags after the event, it must be reported to the police or the competent waste management authority under Hungary’s Act CLXXXV of 2012 on waste. The TeSzedd! contractor will not remove it.

Private land must not be entered without permission, and collection must not obstruct traffic. Full bags have to be left along a paved road in an accessible spot – a consideration that matters when choosing the site in the first place.

What can and cannot be collected?

The rule is simple: anything that can be safely picked up by hand while wearing gloves – primarily household-type waste. This is also the bulk of illegally dumped rubbish: bottles, packaging, cans, bags.

The exclusion list is longer than most people think. Not collectable, and therefore not removed:

• construction and demolition rubble
• paint, paint residue, paint tins
• medicines
• car batteries, engine oil, car parts
• electrical and electronic equipment
• tyres
• mattresses, furniture
• green waste

Paint and automotive waste are routinely forgotten, even though they make up a characteristic share of roadside dumping. If you find any of these on site, it isn’t something the campaign is meant to solve: notify the competent local authority, or report it through the HulladékRadar (Waste Radar) app, downloadable from hulladekradar.hu. That report does real work – clearing illegal dumps depends on reports, not on volunteer enthusiasm alone.

The numbers: what the movement has delivered so far

TeSzedd! launched in 2013 and grew within a few years into Hungary’s largest voluntary environmental event.

• 2019: close to a quarter of a million participants, 3,240 sites, roughly 2,400 tonnes of waste collected. Nearly 1,100 educational institutions, 800 civil society organisations, 600 public administration bodies and 600 private initiatives took part.
• 2024 (12th edition): 22–28 April, 2,200 sites nationwide, close to 1,800 tonnes of waste.
• 2025 (13th edition): 7–13 April, around 2,300 sites, over one hundred thousand participants, with educational institutions helping at more than 700 sites.

The figures come with an important caveat: tonnage measures how much waste ended up illegally in the environment, not how much cleaner the country became. The success of a well-run TeSzedd! week and a genuine decline in illegal dumping are two different metrics – we have been good at the first for years, and not at the second.

How to prepare for the collection

A few things that matter especially for an autumn campaign:

• Dress for the ground, not the air temperature. In autumn the real challenge is wet, slippery leaf litter and muddy ditch banks. Closed, sturdy-soled footwear is essential.
• Check the forecast, but don’t fear the rain. Organisers recommend HungaroMet data; for coordinators, the Meteora app, which also flags alerts that could endanger outdoor collection.
• If it’s drizzling, still go to the meeting point. It may not be raining at the collection site, and the team can decide together on the spot whether to proceed or set a rain date – the latter only within the action week itself.
• If it’s pouring, stay home. Coordinate with your coordinator by phone or email instead.
• Don’t think only about clothing. Organisers advise bringing enough fluid, food if needed, and – depending on the location – tick repellent, a hat and a raincoat. For an October collection along woodland edges, tick repellent isn’t excessive caution: the tick season hasn’t closed by then.

Community service: 5 or 8 hours out of 50

The rules for school participation are more specific than they are usually communicated:

• Students can complete 5 or 8 hours of community service through TeSzedd!, out of the mandatory 50.
• Whether it’s 5 or 8 is decided by the school’s designated staff member, not by the programme.
• The organiser of community service is always the school, so the documentation is its responsibility too.
• No cooperation agreement is needed with the campaign organiser, under Section 133(9) of EMMI Decree 20/2012 (VIII. 31.). In practice this removes a significant administrative burden.
• Students remain under school supervision during collection, and the institution must designate a coordinator who creates a closed meeting point with the planned number of participants.

The campaign also cooperates with Hungary’s Sustainability Theme Week, whose competition rewards schools active during the action week.

Why this is more than a weekend litter pick

On a waste management portal it’s hard to resist the question: is voluntary collection really the best tool? On its own, no. A tonne of bottles pulled out of a ditch doesn’t prevent the next tonne, and systemic solutions – a functioning deposit return scheme, a predictable public service, real deterrence against illegal dumping – cannot be replaced by volunteer labour. International research increasingly points the same way: prevention rather than treatment is the only scalable route.

But TeSzedd! delivers something no regulation can produce: once you’ve personally dragged a bag of rubbish out of a woodland edge, you no longer look the same way at a coffee cup thrown from a car window. Awareness-raising isn’t a by-product here, it’s the substantive result – particularly with school groups, where hundreds of children experience at once how much work follows from a few seconds of careless throwing.

That’s why signing up this year is worth it, and why it’s worth volunteering as a coordinator wherever nobody else would announce a site.

For questions, info@teszedd.hu and +36 1 510 0390 are available during working hours.

Frequently asked questions about TeSzedd 2026 registration

When does TeSzedd 2026 registration open?

TeSzedd 2026 registration opens on 8 September, according to minister László Gajdos, and sign-ups run through szelektalok.hu. The action week itself takes place from 12 to 18 October 2026. Coordinators can publish meeting points, while volunteers join points that have already been listed.

What is the difference between a coordinator and a volunteer?

The coordinator publishes the meeting point: they choose the location and time, brief participants on safety rules, hand out gloves, bags and ties, and make sure full bags reach the designated collection spot. A volunteer simply joins an already published meeting point, signs the attendance sheet, picks up the equipment and collects waste.

What kind of waste can be collected during the campaign?

Anything that can be safely picked up by hand while wearing gloves, meaning mostly household-type waste: bottles, packaging, cans and bags. Construction and demolition waste, medicines, electrical and electronic equipment, tyres, furniture and biowaste must not be collected. In those cases notify the local authority or file a report through the HulladékRadar app.

Does participation count towards community service?

Yes, participation counts towards the mandatory community service of secondary school students, so time spent collecting waste is credited against required hours. This is one reason educational institutions have mobilised the most volunteers for years: in 2025 school groups helped out at more than 700 sites nationwide.

Why was there no TeSzedd! campaign in spring 2026?

The usual April action week did not take place in spring 2026: no information appeared on the teszedd.hu website and no advance sign-up opened. Because of the gap, a written parliamentary question was submitted to the then energy minister in March. The newly announced autumn campaign is therefore a relaunch after a missed season.

What should you do if it rains on the day?

If it is only drizzling, go to the meeting point anyway, since it may not be raining at the collection site and the team can decide together whether to proceed. In heavier rain, stay home and coordinate by phone or email instead. A rain date can only be set within the action week.

How do you register for the TeSzedd! campaign?

Registration starts by creating an account: after entering an email address and password, the system sends a verification code that can take up to three minutes to arrive. Once logged in, you choose whether to create a new meeting point as a coordinator or join an existing one as a volunteer, searchable by settlement.

How many community service hours can students earn through TeSzedd!?

Students can complete 5 or 8 hours of community service out of the mandatory 50, and the school’s designated staff member decides how many hours each student is offered. The school is always the organiser of the service, so documentation is its responsibility. No cooperation agreement is required, as legislation permits this.

Related reading on dontwasteit.hu:

• Registration opens for this year’s TeSzedd! collection campaign (2021)
• TeSzedd! returns – registration open (2022)
• HulladékRadar app goes fully live
• Environmental fines rise significantly
• Reuse and deposit return as the answer to waste prevention

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