Thanks to a donation from Rotary Club Winschoten, ports in Oldambt will be the first locations in the Netherlands to use the innovative waste cleaner DPOL (DePOLlution) system. This is a water cleaning robot that can remove floating contaminants such as plastic or waste from water. Freerk Potze presented the machines on behalf of the Rotary to harbor masters Thijs Huisman (including Blauwestad marina) and Erwin Postema (including Winschoten marina). The presentation took place at 20th September 2024 (World Clean Up Day) in the port of Winschoten.
Sale Jigsaw puzzles
The Rotary Club Winschoten (RCW) purchased the cleaning robots with the proceeds from the sale of the EndPlasticSoup Jigsaw puzzles under the motto ‚Puzzling together for clean water‘, a project to support the initiative of the worldwide End Plastic Soup initiative.
The Rotary in Leer joined in on this puzzle campaign and also used the proceeds to purchase DPOLs for keeping ports clean in their area.
6 DePOLlution systems
This the first time that the machines will be used in the Netherlands. In total 6 systems, 3 in the Netherland and 3 in Germany, will be installed in harbors of the Dollard. The DPOL system manufactured by Ekkopol https://www.ekkopol.com/en/, is already used in several ports around Europe. Ekko’s Co-founder Geoffroy de Kersauson came to Winschoten from France especially for this implementation. The robots collect all kinds of pollutants from the water day and night. In the near future, the Rotary Club will work to involve young people from the community in the use of this technology and the importance of clean water.
