Canoe fleet for plastic-free canals

Target reached

€8.920 Raised

from €7.500 (118%)

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Plastic soup: animals become entangled in it and their stomachs are full of it. And we consume a credit card's worth of plastic every week. In the Plastic Spotter citizen science project, residents and researchers are studying the plastic in the canals together. But we want to clean up the mess too. With new canoes, volunteers will be able to take to the water to clean up the canals. Your donation will help support these clean-up activities. Together we can make our water plastic free!

[Because of canceled events and a postponed launch of the canoe fleet, due to the Coronavirus, this crowdfunding is extended!]

Canoe fleet

The ingredients of the plastic soup also come from Leiden. Plastic bags, candy wrappers, chip bags, bottles: they all end up in the canals and find their way to the sea. Auke-Florian Hiemstra, who is researching plastic in coot nests at the Centre for Environmental Sciences, is one of the coordinators of the project. He calls on everyone to participate and contribute: 'We are learning more and more about the effects of plastic on nature, and tackling this problem at its source will save a lot of trouble further down the chain. As Plastic Spotters, we will map how much plastic is floating through Leiden, where it originates and how it finds its way to the sea. And not only that: before it reaches the sea, we want to fish as much plastic as possible out of the canal. With your donation, we can launch the canoe fleet!'

Plastic spotting

In order to remove plastic waste from the environment and prevent it from reappearing, it is important to know how the plastic spreads. The Crowdwater app makes it quick and easy to record how much plastic there is in the water in your area. Just take a picture and indicate how much plastic you see or whether the canal is clean. We will use this data for scientific research into how plastic is transported through our waterways. Download the app from www.plasticspotter.nl.

Research with residents

The Plastic Spotter research is the result of a call for research questions by the Citizen Science Lab in early 2019. It’s the 444th anniversary of Leiden University and one of the ways we are celebrating this is with citizen science: research that researchers and the public carry out together to gain new knowledge. During the call, it became clear that plastic is a hot topic with the people of Leiden. Various organisations and initiatives are therefore working on the project, including Wageningen University, TNO, Stichting Onder Water in Leiden, Coastbusters and Canal Cups.

Support us!

We need your help for the project! Your donation will fund the materials needed to clean up the plastic in the canal. With your help, we will make the canals cleaner and reduce the impact we in our city have on plastic soup in our seas.

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Questions?

Perch entangled in plastic oranges net, found in the Nieuwe Rijn (photo: Auke-Florian Hiemstra).

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Unwanted rainbow in the Rhine 26-04-2020 | 15:51 From time to time we get reports from colleagues, friends and residents about plastic hotspots and other kinds of pollution. But Saturday 18 April we received a very remarkable report: an oil spill had been spotted in the Nieuwe Rijn canal! Although the canoe fleet focuses mainly on plastic pollution, if we can work towards a cleaner canal we are available. Also when it comes to oil. So we called the police, jumped into our canoes and paddled to the site. There we assisted the enforcers in mapping the scale of the oil slick and it turned out to be a big leak. Hundreds of meters of canal were contaminated. The Nieuwe Rijn between the Kraaierbrug and the Singelbrug showed all the colours of the rainbow and there was an intense smell of diesel. An expert from Ecoloss soon attacked the oil with a bacterial spray that would break down the oil. 48 Hours later when we inspected the water of the Nieuwe Rijn, it indeed had the familiar clean appearance again, without the smell of diesel. Unfortunately, the source of the leakage was not found. We inspected all the boats along the canal by canoe, but could not detect the origin. It remains possible that the pollution came from a passing ship.

Effects of the Corona crisis on the canals 23-04-2020 | 16:34 Due to the Corona crisis, all organised activities by canoe in Leiden are canceled for some time. We are waiting for developments and advises from RIVM (Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) before we can restart our activities, with or without the necessary restrictions. Until then, we can already notice the effects of Corona on the canals. The good news is that the amount of litter in the Leiden canals seems to be decreasing. Probably because there is less activity on and around the canal. The terrace boats are not in use, there are fewer people in the parks, fewer boats on the water and, for now, no market adjacent to the canal. We also observe a change in types of litter: face masks, lots of disposable gloves, shopping bags, toilet paper packaging. The canals seem to be a reflection of society. Plastic Spotter Auke-Florian Hiemstra also told about this on the Dutch TV talkshow Op1. PreparationsLitter in the Leiden canals remains relevant, unfortunately. So, despite the limited possibilities to do research these days, we're not really time-bound. At the moment we do occasional monitoring with a small team, of course at an appropriate distance so we obtain an up-to-date overview of the distribution and quantities of litter. We are also testing our data acquisition methods and are working on our new canoe fleet. This way we'll be well prepared for group sessions as soon as they're allowed again! Canoeing sessionsIf the current measures are mitigated, we'll immediately consider how to restart canoeing sessions in accordance with the guidelines from the government and RIVM. It is still difficult to predict when this will be possible. In any case, it would be a good opportunity for a baseline measurement: what will we find in the canals after a period of closure of cafes and restaurants and the absence of the market? Target crowdfunding almost reached! As far as our crowdfunding is concerned, we still need less than 500 euros, thanks to you! As the crowdfunding runs until 30 April, please share www.steunleiden.nl with colleagues, friends, family and neighbours. Together we'll reach the target amount for cleaner canals!