After almost five years of design, recovery of plastics, recycling, fundraising and intensive collaboration, the first floating park of recycled plastic was inaugurated.
The prototype was installed in the port of Rotterdam, the largest seaport in Europe and the second largest city in Holland.
With 140m2, the so-called “Recycled Park” demonstrates the potential of discarded materials. In the case of this project, the Recycled Island Foundation collected the plastics for a year and a half, installing “traps” in the polluted rivers (avoiding in passing that they reached the sea).
The environmental organization affirms that the technology manages to capture the waste even in areas navigable by boats, changes of wind or tide. And better yet, it can be implemented anywhere in the world: ports, rivers and almost any watercourse.
“When we recover plastics directly in our cities and ports, we actively avoid the additional growth of the” plastic soup “in our seas and oceans. Rotterdam can serve as an example for port cities in other parts of the world. The construction of building blocks from recycled plastic is an important step towards a river free of garbage, “says architect Ramon Knoester, founder of the Recycled Island Foundation.
Before reaching the sea.
An investigation commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment stated that more than one thousand cubic meters of plastic waste are transported each year by the Meuse River to the North Sea.
The plastics come from landfills, agriculture, sewerage and inland navigation and reach the sea by waste, garbage and
waste the waste used in this project was captured in the Meuse River, which was born in France, passes through Belgium and the Netherlands, and goes to the North Sea. The idea is precisely to prevent such components from reaching the sea, where the problem gains uncontrollable dimensions.
To create the platforms, the collected plastic was sent to the University of Wageningen (in Holland), which leads the research on effective recycling techniques. And other Dutch universities, including TU Delft and the University of Rotterdam, helped develop the interconnected hexagonal blocks, which were subsequently anchored on the floor of the Dutch port.
In addition to contributing to the reduction of aquatic litter, the structures also help the plants to develop.
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