Whatsit Wednesday: Environment station

It sounds strange in English. In the Netherlands, city neighborhoods all have their own “environment station” or street. It is called a “Milieu perron” and consists of several containers which are partially underground and partially above ground. These containers are for various sorts of trash: glass, paper, plastic-metal-drink containers, and even diapers. Every week or two a truck comes, lifts the containers out of their hole in ground, and empties them, taking their respective trash to the trash collection and sorting area in the city. 

Everyone here is used to separating their trash. In the house one already considers what kind of trash it is. Food scraps are put into a green container which is also placed on the street to be picked up regularly. Paper is usually collected in some sort of cardboard box and then either taken to the environment station or placed o the street to be picked up once a month. Even batteries and electronics can be collected at the local supermarket in special boxes. 

In Maastricht all the rest of the trash (which is called “restafval”) was put in a red and white plastic trash sack and put out on the street to be collected twice a month. You could not put your sack out until after 5pm before the day of collection. Ion 2025 the city of Maastricht is changing their rules. Suddenly, the environment station will look quite different. If it will encourage people to continue separating trash or not is a big question. 

The environment station will still have the containers, but now most of them will be for “rest”, the stuff people used to put in the red-white sacks (which they had to buy). The containers for glass and paper will remain, as will the container for diapers. But the containers for PMD (plastic-metal-drink) will be turned into containers for “rest”. And people will need to use a special card to dump their trash here. It will be weighed or measured in some way. 

In the meantime, the PMD will still need to be sorted, but this will happen in the house. All of the PMD will now go into a plastic sack (which is free at the time) and placed on the street to be collected twice a month. For some people this change simply means exchanging sacks and carrying heavier sacks to the environment station. But for older people, this may mean that they have difficulties getting their trash out. 

Some of the reasons for these changes has been that the environment stations recently (in 2024) were getting more and more messy. People would simply drop their trash sacks at the station, not separating anything. Trash was left blowing about in the wind - not placed in the containers. Officials hope that this will now stop. I will be interested to see how many sacks are now simply dumped at the environment station (because people do not want to have it weighed or do not have the money for it). 

In a small country full of people like the Netherlands, taking care of trash and the shared spaces has always been a challenge. This has become part of the national identity. It will interesting to see how this evolves in the coming year. 

Whatsit Wednesday: Jar licker

I remember cooking with my mom and siblings in the kitchen when I was young. Whenever Mom made cookies or a cake or some such, we were allowed to help, especially with the clean-up. This meant, since there were multiple siblings, that someone got the spoon, someone else the spatula and two others the bowl. When we ended up having six, it got harder to be fair. Each kid had something to lick off and enjoy. 

So when I got to the Netherlands and heard that they had a utensil which is literally called a “jar licker” - pottenlikker - I was intrigued. What did this utensil look like and how was it used. But there wasn’t much of a mystery. It was exactly what it purported to be - a utensil which helps clear out a jar. 

Mind you, it is not a spatula. A spatula can be used to clean a pan or bowl or pot. It is a bit of silicon on a stick that can be used, better than a spoon, to clean the edges of the pan or bowl or pot. The “pottenlikker” has a different task in the kitchen. It is specifically used for (usually glass) jars. The word for jar in Dutch is “pot”, just to make things a bit more confusing. 

The Dutch are considered to be thrifty. Some call I stingy. The joke among the Belgians about the Dutch is: How do you know which yard is from a Dutchman? It is the one with the toiletpaper hanging up to dry. So wanting to get the very last bits out of a jar makes perfect sense for a Dutchman. After all, you paid for everything in the jar, you should be able to enjoy every last bit. That is what a pottenlikker is for - to get the very last bit. 

But it also touches on another desire of the Dutchman - being environmentally friendly. The Dutch have a lot of things in jars. They buy their vegetables in jars instead of cans. Glass jars can be recycled. There is a place in every neighborhood to bring your used glass containers (jars). But these should be dumped or gathered clean. If you leave bits of food in the jar, it will only attract bugs of all sorts and will stink up the area. So every jar should be cleaned. Enter the pottenlikker.