More than 140 electric scooters, mobile phones, a ladder and even a dildo ended up in the Copenhagen Harbour in the past year, and the mayor wants action to keep the water free from junk.

The items were among various finds in the annual clean-up over the course of two weeks. Divers also fished out 181 bicycles, a large advertising sign and 47 café chairs.

“It’s a bad thing to dump things in our harbour, whether it’s bikes or scooters. The owners have to take responsibility for their scooters when they rent them out,” the mayor of Copenhagen, Frank Jensen, told TV2, adding that many people enjoyed swimming there in the summer.

Scooter-free zones
Copenhagen has allowed electric scooters on its bike paths since January 2019, but in June last year it limited the number to 200 electric scooters and 200 electric bikes in the Inner City from 2020 onwards.

Voi, a company renting out hundreds of electric scooters in the capital, said it had established zones in the harbour so that scooters do not end up in the water. It also hired staff to fish them out.

“Batteries and scooters don’t belong in the water, and we will do everything we can to prevent this from happening,” said Eric André, the general manager of Voi.

Not the first time
Last year, only 10 electric scooters were found during the clean-up held shortly after the scooters arrived on the streets. The increase this year is partly due to timing, with the clean-up happening a full year after the scooters were in place.

As for the other finds, this is the third year in a row that divers have fished out a dildo from the water.

How the sex toys ended up there remains a mystery.