The Dutch Tile Wipe Championship sounds like a joke, but it is a serious attempt to make people aware of replacing their tiled gardens with greenery. Out of a total of 344 Dutch municipalities, 135 took part in this championship. Hollands Kroon became the winner in the category of small municipalities with less than 50,000 inhabitants.
Tile out, green in! The Steenbreek Foundation has been committed to reducing the number of tile gardens for years. And that is badly needed, according to the foundation. Due to the many tiles, the heat lingers longer in the gardens and rainwater is also less able to sink into the ground.
Biodiversity
“When people buy a house, the first thing they do is often fill the garden with tiles,” said Henk Jense of Stichting Steenbraak. earlier against NH Nieuws. “That is really no longer possible these days. Green is not only important for biodiversity and the attractiveness of your garden. But greenery also retains water and you do not want water to run off. Water must remain in the area.”
Hollands Kroon was one of the municipalities participating in the championship and won in the small towns category. More than 150,000 tiles were removed, which is more than 3,000 per inhabitant. Much more than the number two IJsselstein. The next Noord-Holland municipality was Heemskerk, which had finished in tenth place. Den Helder (3), Velsen (6) and Amstelveen (7) were in the top ten of medium-sized municipalities. Amsterdam was eighth among the large municipalities. The Hague won the gold tile for most flipped tiles.
Conscious
Whether the Dutch tile seesaw will really help to encourage people to replace their tiled gardens with green gardens, know former head of the landscaping of Heemskerk Nico Brantjes not. “Ah, it is well-intentioned, but replacing some tiles with green will not get you there. People have to become aware that it can no longer be done like this. Perhaps in that sense this competition will work well.”
Watch footage from the awarding of the spades and tile for the winners below: