It is a familiar sight in Amsterdam: floating litter in the water. Rubbish can also be found on the IJ and along the banks of the Port of Amsterdam. The port authority set out to find a solution, which has resulted in a pilot with the CanalCleaner.
The CanalCleaner was developed by Noria, a scale-up that devises solutions to combat urban plastic waste. ‘The strength of the CanalCleaner lies in its simplicity,’ says Arnoud van der Vaart, co-founder of Noria. The system and its location ensure that waste from the canals does not end up in the IJ. ‘It actually works like a kind of trap,’ explains Van der Vaart. ‘With this trap in the water, we stop the waste and collect it.’
Two-year pilot
The system has now been installed at the Haparandadam and will remain there for at least two years. Initial feedback is positive: ‘We can see that the system is capable of effectively retaining the waste that enters it.’ The system can be emptied using a crane from the water or from the quay.
Van der Vaart: ‘With this pilot, we can also monitor how much waste passes through this location. That couldn’t be determined in the preliminary study. If it successfully traps enough waste in the coming period, the floating lines can be extended to increase the system’s reach and thus trap more plastic waste originating from the city.’
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Monitoring waste
The CanalCleaner can collect up to thousands of pieces of waste per day: ‘Of course, this does depend on the type of waste that ends up in it. A large piece of polystyrene or a cigarette filter. That is also something we hope to learn from this pilot.’
So the system not only stops litter, it also helps with research into the type of litter in the water. ‘This kind of information helps, for example, the City of Amsterdam to take targeted measures at source so that the litter doesn’t end up in the water. The CanalCleaner was developed based on our knowledge and experience with litter in the water,’ explains Van der Vaart.
No more vacuum cleaner needed
There is a lot of litter on the riprap at the Haparandadam, which is currently removed about three times a year using a kind of vacuum cleaner. Exactly where the litter comes from, and how much there is per day or month, is not yet known.
Van der Vaart: ‘The pilot must determine whether there is a sufficient supply of litter at the Haparandadam site, and at what times this occurs. If the desired effect is achieved – rubbish floating down the river from the city no longer ends up on the banks – we can expand the scheme, and the vacuuming may no longer be necessary, saving us a great deal of money. Keeping the area clean is much more cost-effective; in other words, prevention is better than cure.’
Picture: The CanalCleaner will collect waste from Amsterdam’s canals before it reaches the IJ (photo by Port of Amsterdam).
