Hello everyone, remember our post on the pollution and water quality of canals and waterways? One city has found a way to curb the problem and make tourism a more environmentally sustainable activity!

Cleaning waterway tours 

Like the saying, “fight fire with fire”, that is what an organization in Amsterdam is doing. Plastic Whale, a tour company on the waterways of Amsterdam and Rotterdam’s harbour, runs guided tours during which guests can use nets to fish plastic waste from the water. The goal of the company and these tours is to remove plastic from the waterways and create new life for the plastic picked up. The same boats that carry the tourists on the tour are made from the plastic extracted from the waterways of Amsterdam. Therefore, this broadens their scale of operation and increases the amount of plastic they remove from the waterways since more boats means more trash is extracted. Hence, they are also working on a circular cycle of consumption that extends the life of plastic goods while keeping the waterways cleaner. 

Evolving tourism 

Such innovative entrepreneurship that emphasizes environmental conservation is what we need more of in our world. Plastic Whale is one example of ecotourism. Ecotourism (which we will cover in greater detail in weeks to come) is a rising form of tourism that not only aims to be more environmentally sustainable but to also educate tourists and communities on minimizing the harmful impacts of tourism. While tourism may contribute to pollution, such as the pollution of waterways, it can also play a part in alleviating and curbing the pollution problem.

 

References

Kaplan, D 2018, ‘These boats are using tourists to clean up Amsterdam’s canals’, World Economic Forum, 9 April, viewed on 6 September 2020, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/you-can-fish-plastic-from-amsterdams-canals-on-this-eco-boat-tour

‘What is Ecotourism?’, The International Ecotourism Society, viewed on 6 September, https://ecotourism.org/what-is-ecotourism/