People living near the biodigester in Stadskanaal, just across the border in Groningen, are fed up with the constant manure smell that hangs outside, but also inside the homes. It even goes so far that they are considering selling their home.
It is Thursday morning when Bentum and neighbor Wendy Stel are in the garden. They live less than five hundred meters from the digester as the crow flies. Manure, among other things, is put in that digester. Burning it produces green gas and electricity. The gas goes to the adjacent Refaja Hospital, the electricity goes into the grid.
A sustainable way of generating energy, but one that leads to annoyance in the environment.
Bentum: “We have lived here for eleven years now. The first few years we had no problems, but in the past three months it has become so extreme that I prefer to put a for sale sign in the garden. The windows cannot be opened, you cannot sitting outside, you can’t even hang your laundry outside. And then you have to consider that we live just under five hundred meters away. You also have a neighborhood that lives right next to it. We have contact with those people. They are also the fed up.”
Stel has exactly the same experience: “I think it’s terrible. It’s been impossible to do for a few months, it’s really horrible. I also can’t open a window or that smell will come in. Then you have to open everything to avoid that manure smell. to get it out again, but that is not possible because then you get much more of that smell. I am really done with it.”