Today was our first full day in the city of Rotterdam. After a hearty hotel breakfast, we headed over to the infamous floating farm in the city. Here, the farmhouses are 30 different cows as well as various small crops in a vertical garden on their sublevel, and even a cheese factory within the establishment. Here we learned that the farm was inspired by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when it struck NYC and put a halt to all exports by truck from Hunts Point, NYC (the main exporting location for trucks and other delivery vehicles). This created an issue where, although there was food, it was hard to get around the city as it was stuck between cracked roads and toppled bridges. Due to this, the team created the floating farm project. It was super cool to see how they used elements of other projects we’ve already explored, like the floating houses in Schoonschip. They had a very clean process that created almost zero waste, even having ethical and clean ways to reuse the manure and orange rinds for compost. Although inspired by an American tragedy, I was confused as to why America hasn’t done a similar project in areas of similar business, like NYC, where the project was initially inspired.  We learned that, although a futuristic project that has the potential to be a wild success and a sustainable way to farm while reducing how much land needed to be leveled, the government doesn’t contribute any funding, making it difficult to succeed. Although we got the chance to pet some cows, so that was a pretty enjoyable part of the visit.

Later on, after taking a water taxi, we found ourselves in the RDM Establishment. Here, different small startups and businesses with sustainable-focused products can rent out a space to join a community of like-minded corporations. Companies like Paebble, which focuses on taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and mixing it with olivine, a rock that covers 60% of Earth’s crust, to create a substance that can be used in place of concrete for constructions, trapping CO2. Or Hardt, who is developing Maglev long-distance transportation using hyperloops to reduce the carbon footprint of long-distance travel and remove domestic flights in their entirety. I think the most interesting one I heard about was Swordfish, which is creating a robot meant to walk along the ocean floor, placing cables for offshore windmills without disturbing the environment.  The entire atmosphere was a hive of companies wanting to better the world and it was an amazing way to see how many initiatives are in place for our future. That’s it for today, catch you later!