Nieuws
The return of the market litter
The market stalls have returned along the canals of the Nieuwe Rijn in September, and unfortunately we have also noticed this in the waste in the canal. From white plastic bags and crates from the grocery to many large polystyrene containers from the fish stall.......
For a long time, we came across almost no litter on our route from the market in Leiden. But since the market has returned to the Nieuwe Rijn and the stalls are back along the canal, we have had to deal with it almost every week. Especially Sunday 7 November we had a shocking amount of Styrofoam from the fish stalls. Below you can see the total yield, of polystyrene alone. Quite a haul! Styrofoam is known to break down quickly and unfortunately, we saw a lot of small styrofoam grains floating around that could not be cleaned up.
We have reported this find back to the law enforcement officers of the municipality of Leiden. They told us they would deal with the matter and take it up with the market warden. On their advice, we also reported the market waste we found to the municipality of Leiden in the following weeks.
The third Sunday after the first report, the problem of floating Styrofoam bins was solved! The fish stalls had been moved, which we could tell from the yellow signs we still found, to direct people to the new location. In addition, volunteer Edward had also seen the stalls in a different location during the market day. We hope that this is a permanent change, it will already save a lot of waste.
