Today was our final day of the Plus 3 Netherlands trip, fortunately we ended on an interesting note. Unfortunately, though, we have to leave the beautiful country of the Netherlands. I can only think too that the good weather on this trip was brought by our group and now that we are leaving it has become cloudy.
To start off our morning we took a little bit of a longer tram ride to our first destination. We were visiting the floating farm. In a traditional sense it isn’t much of a farm, instead it is a new area for sustainable growth and utilization of the limited space present in the Netherlands. The floating farm is a 3 story semi submersed structure that sits atop of two poles. These poles ensure that the farm can only move vertically and not horizontally. The farms only residents are cows whom we saw from far away on land. The farm was inspired by Hurricane Sandy as the owners were in New York at the time and wanted to consider flood resistant methods. They chose to build the floating farm which is the first of its kind.
The floating farm is sustainable in multiple ways. It is powered by solar panels that float adjacent to the farm in the water. They are also considering wind turbines for use and are testing the area for its effectiveness. The floating farm eliminates food waste by taking grass, barley from breweries and other food waste and turning it into food. They contribute to the Netherlands goals of higher food quality by ensuring their milk is pure. The floating farm also reduces its ammonia levels by 60% through the filtration of cow urine back into drinking water for the cows. Additionally, the cow manure is used in many different ways from fertilizer to bricks. They utilize their submersed floor for growing plants such as basil and are always exploring more sustainable methods. They have inspired others around the world and are expanding themselves as well. The food is also only sold within a 10 km radius to ensure low transportation costs and freshness. They sell business to business and business to consumer. Their concept was flood resistant high quality dairy products and they deliver this through a farm that is flood resistant, cows who are watched and sustainably fed and through close proximity to consumers. Finally, an interesting point was made about their packaging, they use plastic. While this may seem strange it was explained that glass is heavy adding to transportation issues and also needs heavy chemicals and lots of water to be cleaned, similarly carboard has plastic that is not separated in landfills. They did extensive research with university students to discover that plastic in this way was the best.
For our final destination of the trip and what I believe was one of the most interesting places. We visiting RDM which was once the Rotterdam Dry Dock where they repaired and built boats but is now Research, Design and Manufacturing. The Port Authority of Rotterdam realized that as the world moves away from oil the nature of shipping is changing and so they had to evolve. This evolution involved changing several buildings and remodeling them for commercial use. The largest building was used for the applied sciences university in Rotterdam and an attachment was used for innovative businesses. In accordance with the Netherlands commitment to sustainability these business must follow two criteria. The first being that they are safe, not dirty for the climate or area and not dangerous from a chemical/explosive standpoint. The second point is that they must be aligned with a renewable energy or sustainability service or product that can benefit the Netherlands. Some cool examples of what we saw was a company attempting to create a hyper loop or high speed magnetic train essentially, companies creating artificial reefs and drone companies.
My trip to the Netherlands was very enjoyable and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to gain this cultural experience. I learned how to work better in a team, navigate a foreign country and solve problems both complex and simple. Thanks to all who helped organize this program and to Frank and Dr Bursic and thanks for reading!