Brussels is Striking in view of the Brussels ‘ canal, these days, some of the young men and women to sail with a boat in the water and the fish floating debris from the water. Pieter Elsen (32)) from Molenbeek-Saint-jean, the man behind the initiative. If you prefer, you can have it with him in the canoe, and crawl, and see with your own eyes how dirty the water is.

Elsen, is living close to the canal, Leopold II-laan. Then, one day in the newspaper and wanted to read it along with the water and fell on the plastic and the stuff that ronddreven to him, all of a sudden. “No, because it’s a place where you can walk by without giving you something special to see,” he said. “But if you look closely is really just how much debris there was floating. I was so taken aback that I decided to do something about it. Two weeks later, I got a canoe, and bought it.”

for The first time, from the Elsen, it was in the month of June. “The goal is to be at least 1 time a week, sailing week, every week, just to take it to as many people as possible to the action. After each trip, will appear a message on the facebook page of Canal-it-up. The comments are all positive, both on the facebook page, as well as on the side of the embankment. Which, for me, is a sign that there is a demand for a structural solution to the problem is the people, not in the least cold. In the meantime, I have been with about 30 people in the channel, pulled up, and I get requests from people in other boats who are willing to help you.”

the Support of the City of

very quickly, Elsen for his project with the support of the City of Brussels, belgium. “We can give them a pilot to use close to the channel, our canoe to save it,” he said. “There’s also the trash bins, where we have our speed, our waste is sorted. That just makes it all the more easier as the first was in kano with my parents and my in sint-jans-molenbeek.”

Elsen, is not the only thing that the canal is clean. Also there is 1 ship that allows them a couple of times a week and waste from the canal to the fish. “However, we are still in the dirt, hear,” says Elsen. “The Plastic out of the channel and fish with a boat is cleaning the floor with the faucet open, it’s a never-ending stream. For me, this is more of a way to make people aware of the problem until a real solution comes up.”.

Anyone take a look at the channel and notices that there is a lot of dirt and bovendrijft. “You have to keep in mind that a large proportion of the waste is still under water,” says Elsen. “Moreover, it is a difficult area because there is little or no current at all on it, and the motion of the floating, plastic, and depending on the wind. That’s why some of the plasticvangers is not very good. As the wind changes throughout the day, and even the direction of the net of plastic is floating there as well.”

Automatic system of

Elsen, would have boat trips, do not leave it out. “The ultimate goal is to be the minister for the Environment, Alain Maron (Ecological) – to contact him a couple of options that I know of is that they can be applied on the channel is heard. “The debris would be transported out of the water to be brought, almost without any human intervention. The best thing is that there is no plastic in the water, but there is still a lot of uses in our society.”

A very interesting idea, it is the Netherlands ‘start-up’ of The Great “Bubble Barrier,” says Elsen. “They are working on a waterbubbels the plastic to the top and to the side and do drive where it is out of the water, it can be removed. The one in the Slope would be the ideal place to be. I still have not received any confirmation that this can be applied to the channel, but it is important, however, that this is a problem that is addressed.”