Clean-Ups

We protect water quality and ecosystems from pollution by doing regular clean-ups in various places, from beaches to harbours, to forests and down town. Students do this mostly for extra study credits, but anyone is welcome to join if they want. This way we are contributing to the "Covenant Schone Schelde" a promise signed by HZ and 34 other organisations to keep the river Scheldt clean!

Why we organise the Clean-Ups that we do:

BEACH CLEAN-UPS

Beach pollution is awful to look at, as this is where we humans want to spend our free time. What sometimes gets overlooked though, is that the beach and dunes are also an ecosystem – nevermind the sea! It would be like your neighbours throwing their trash into your garden. The issue is that trash in the sea especially will break into smaller and smaller pieces making it easier and easier for animals to eat or ingest by accident.

CITY CLEAN-UPS

Sometimes the lack of infrastructure is the issue. Local municipalities are actively working on this, but individual solutions can also inspire – shout out to the Vishandel Middelburg that installed an ash tray in their backside street to combat the hundreds of cigarettes that we used to find there on the ground.

CIGARETTE CLEAN-UPS

Speaking of which, sometimes the lack of policies is the issue. Policy for smoking and cigarette disposal is well on its way, at least in the Netherlands. For instance, did you know that the «Smokefree Generation» tiles are part of a national campaign from when it became illegal to smoke on school grounds all the way back in 2020?

SUP BOARD CLEAN-UPS

Sometimes the lack of awareness about the problem is the issue. This is why we started the Stand Up Paddle Board Clean-Ups – a super visible and fun way to show people what we are doing, and hopefully inspire others.

ALONG THE CANAL

There are two reasons why we do clean-ups along the canal through Walcheren.

1) In march the water level is lowered so that tractors can go on the field and artificially fertilize the soil, which is damaging to the soil and the water quality. But it does allow us to get trash further in the canal. And,

2) We do clean-ups before the province mows the grass in July, such that the trash doesn’t get shredded by the mower.