The world’s first self-sustaining eco village near Amsterdam is coming in 2020: truly the height of Dutch innovation. The village has been designed and will be built by ReGenVillages.
Location of the new village // source: regenvillages
So, how does this work exactly?
This 60-acre village in Almere does what it says on the tin – it’s going to be self-sustaining. This means that roads will only be the width of a bike or pedestrian path and no houses will have a driveway, so no cars allowed!
Source: regenvillages
The surrounding landscape will be filled with fruit and vegetable patches and greenhouses, complete with collected rainwater, to feed the neighbouring residents. Rainwater will also be filtered through these 194 homes and then it can be used as drinking water. Any food waste that the residents have will be used to feed fish and other animals, which are used for farming. You’ll even be able to volunteer at the community centre and in return, you would get Home Association fee discounts. And if you want to go into Amsterdam and the center of Almere, self-driving electric buses and cars, located on the outskirts of this village will take you there. Clever, huh?
Source: regenvillages
The construction company ReGen Villages, wanted to be able to tackle the issues of our time – population growth, housing shortages and environmental and sustainability issues. This is definitely one way of doing it!
How much will they cost?
Prices will range quite considerably within this village. On the lower end of the scale, the smaller houses will go for around €200,000, whereas a much larger place will go for around €850,000. Once you’ve bought a house there, you are expected to maintain the sustainability by helping out. Like I said earlier, as a reward you’d get HOA free discounts, which is possible by logging the number of hours worked by using blockchain technology.
The new self-sustaining eco village near Amsterdam! // Source: regenvillages
When is this new village coming to Almere?
While 203 homes were approved by Almere in July 2018, ReGen filed for more land for more homes this year. If approved, they could be breaking ground in 2020!
The company are planning on creating more sustainable villages away from the Netherlands, in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, USA and Asia.
Click here to inquire about being a future resident. Will you be bagging yourself a new ReGen home? 😉
What are your thoughts on this new self-sustaining eco village near Amsterdam? Let us know in the comments!
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on 14 August 2018 but was updated on 31 October 2019 for your reading pleasure.
Winter seems to be here early, as the first below-zero temperatures were recorded in De Bilt yesterday. This first frost day has come earlier than usual: generally it comes around the 3rd of November.
De Bilt was not the first weather station to record sub-zero temperatures in the Netherlands- that award (or punishment) goes to Eelde in Drenthe. Temperatures below zero were recorded there on Tuesday.
The worst of the freeze is being felt in the east of the country- for example, in Heino, daytime temperatures of 2.4 degrees have been reported. It’s quite a bit warmer elsewhere in the country, with the Wadden Islands hitting 3 degrees and Den Helder 4.5 degrees.
The earliest frost day ever was recorded in 1971, when it hit below zero on the 16th of September. Luckily this year doesn’t seem to be quite as cold, but nonetheless, we’re not relishing this early frost in October either.
Did you have to scrape the frost off your car this morning? Let us know in the comments below.
A dog that was trained in the Netherlands was praised for defeating ISIS leader AL-Baghdadi by Donald Trump (but we don’t hold that against this good boy).
The director of Hondenadvies Centrum Nederland, Marco van Hoof, told Editie NL that he recognised the dog immediately when US President Donald Trump shared a photo of the dog on Twitter last Monday.
The Belgian Shepherd dog was trained at van Hoof’s facility in Best, before being sent over to the US via Amsterdam. According to van Hoof, the dog is male and five years old. When asked if he was surprised to hear about the dog’s involvement in such a mission, van Hoof said: “No, we train dogs to achieve these kinds of results.”
We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! pic.twitter.com/PDMx9nZWvw
The dog suffered some minor injuries last Saturday in Syria when Al-Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest, but he is apparently now back to work and in full health.
According to Eric Sanders from PROCentrum, a training centre for police officers in the Netherlands, it’s not at all surprising that it was a Dutch dog who was involved in he military campaign. “The Netherlands is really a dog country. We are very good at training dogs. We then deliver the dogs to the US Army and the police.”
Do you have a similar good boy at home? Let us know in the comments below.
Holiday rentals can be a great way for some people to make some extra money on the side but Amsterdam has been wanting to limit it as much as possible as a lot of people do it illegally. They are going to be introducing a number of new rules for 2020 and hope that this will help towards solving the housing shortage in the capital. These new rules will come into effect starting from next year.
Permit for eight years
According to a press release, starting next year, you will be required to apply for a permit for a Bed & Breakfast. It will be valid for eight years, not five years as announced before. Tenants who have been living at their home for at least six months and have gotten permission from their landlord can also be granted a permit. They will also not be allowed to transfer the permit to someone else’s name.
If anybody has applied for a permit before 2019 ends, they will be allowed a transition period of five years before they have to make the necessary arrangements.
Flexibility for houseboats – but only until the end of 2019
Anyone looking to rent out their houseboats to tourists will continue to enjoy some flexibility until the end of this year. However, starting from 2020, they will have to comply to the same rules as the B&B’s and room rentals.
Fixed number of permits
However, it does not mean that everyone will be able to apply for these permits. The government will be setting a fixed number of Bed & Breakfast permits which can be issued for a particular neighbourhood. This number can vary depending on the neighbourhood itself. If there are more permits applied than is allowed, RTL Z reports that “lots will be drawn”.
They are also going to go ahead with the cap on a maximum of 30 days per year of renting your house to tourist. They alderman is also entertaining the idea of banning holiday rentals altogether in certain neighbourhoods, but nothing has come to pass.
What do you make of these rules? Do you think they will help solve the housing shortage in Amsterdam? Let us know in the comments below!
A funeral is a time of mourning, consoling and closure. But what do you do when it is ruined because someone serves a space cake at the wake? A funeral wake went dangerously wrong when a space cake was accidentally served. No, this did not happen in the Netherlands. It wasn’t even intentional!
It happened in a small East German town called Wiethagen – how can this not be a Dutch town? – in August when the mother of an 18-year-old delivered the wrong cake to the restaurant where the wake was happening. The mother was an employee of the restaurant. 13 guests had to be rushed to the hospital to be treated for nausea and dizziness, reports NOS.
The girl regularly bakes cakes for different occasions and had initially made one for the funeral. But obviously, she was not planning on making a space cake for this occasion. This one was for *cough* personal consumption.
She is being tried by the police for violating German drug law, causing injury and disrupting a funeral.
What a time to be found out about your drug habits! If you’re going to do drugs, do them responsibly kids. What would you do if you were in this situation? Let us know in the comments below!
Construction workers are protesting against the new regulations to manage the nitrogen crisis on the Malieveld in The Hague today. There have already been conflicts with the police. The A12 has been shut down to prevent more vehicles from entering the Malieveld.
The Netherlands is currently in the grip of a nitrogen crisis. However, the government’s attempts to impose regulations to lessen the amount of nitrogen in the air have been received with protest after protest. After the slew of farmers’ demonstrations in The Hague and at provincial houses around the Netherlands throughout October, construction workers have taken their place on the Malieveld in The Hague. The turnout for this protest is considerably lower than the farmers’, reports NOS. The construction industry makes up between five and six percent of the Dutch economy, more than the agricultural industry does.
Geen plek meer op het Malieveld dus er mag geparkeerd worden op de rijbanen langs het veld. Verkeer kan hier geen kant meer op. #bouwprotestpic.twitter.com/KLsPHTRCCM
The reason for the protest is the PFAS standard in The Hague, as well as new building regulations, which have stalled construction works in the Netherlands. These were introduced to combat the nitrogen crisis, but the government announced yesterday that they would roll back these regulations in December. The construction workers pointed out that for some entrepreneurs, December was pretty far off still- hence their decision to go ahead with the protest today.
Given the housing shortage in the Netherlands, as well as the necessity of doing construction work to make buildings more sustainable, those involved in the construction industry were frustrated by how these regulations were standing in the way of building progress around the country. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the nitrogen crisis spells doom for much of the nature in the Netherlands. The government has not yet come up with a solution that protects the environment while also taking care of those who rely on the construction (or agricultural) industries for income.
How do we solve the nitrogen crisis while also protecting workers? Let us know in the comments below.
Sub-zero temperatures, slippery driveways making you fear for your life, and chills running through your bones: the Dutch winter might have finally arrived, as did the first gritters. The weather is forecasted to fall below zero every night for the rest of the week, but with all the weather records being broken during the summer, what can we expect during the winter?
Over the years, as climate change has started taking its toll and people are taking notice a lot more, many are left wondering what winter has in store for them: will it be not as cold as last year, should they expect sub-zero temperatures every night for the whole season or if they should prepare for milder winters from here on out. The first frost has come and gone, but how different is it from the past?
NU.nl set out to find out if it is completely normal to have the first frost of autumn, and how different it was from the past years. Of course, having frost, even in the milder winters, is normal.
According to Stephan Okhuijsen of Datagraver, the night frost season has reduced by a total of 30 days where the first frost of the season is almost 10 days later and the last frost is 20 days earlier than 75 years ago.
They also found out that the total number of days that frost occurs in a year has fallen from 80 frost days to around 50 days. So there is nearly a month worth of frost disappearing.
Met de eerste nachtvorst in aantocht hier een overzicht van het historische verloop van het aantal dagen in een jaar dat de temperatuur onder de nul graden zakt. Kijkend naar het langjarig gemiddelde zijn dat er nu bijna 30 minder dan 75 jaar geleden. pic.twitter.com/Ox48XUWyHo
TRANSLATION: With the first frost coming, an overview of the historical course of the number of days in a year [when] the temperature drops below zero degrees is approaching. Looking at the long-term average, there are now almost 30 fewer [days] than 75 years ago.
Why is the night frost season disappearing faster during the spring and not autumn?
There are two reasons why this might be the case, says Sluijter to NU.nl: the Netherlands’ proximity to the North Sea and the lack of snow during the late winter.
Lack of snow
Sometime around mid-March, the temperatures gradually start to increase and eventually transition into the summer season. As is expected, it is not cold enough for snow to occur. This gradual increase in temperature means that it can take a while before the last frost can occur. So any changes to this gradual increase also affects when the last frost happens. The frost occurs closer to the winter months as the average temperature starts to increase. For this year, it is twenty days earlier.
“It is the other way around in the fall,” Sluijter continues. “The minimum temperature drops much steeper down from October to December. Heating will cause a slight shift in the first night frost – but for the time being no more than ten days.”
Proximity to the North Sea
The season that precedes autumn and winter is summer. We saw a lot of weather records broken where we experienced some of the hottest days ever and multiple heatwaves. When temperatures are soaringly high, the North Sea naturally gets heated up.
North sea in Holland makes the late summer days last longer. Image: Korneel Luth/Pixabay
It stays warm well after the summer season has ended and so the temperatures are still high in the Netherlands during September. Once we have finally bid adieu to warm weather, and the days start getting shorter and the nights are longer, there is a higher chance of sub-zero temperatures in the night. But Sluijter at KNMI says that it is coldest only towards the end of the night – sometimes even coinciding with the time of dawn.
But in the spring in March when the nights are shorter, the timeframe within which it would be optimum for freezing temperatures is much smaller. Therefore, it is easier for it to get warmer and naturally transition into the summer months than it is for the temperatures to drop and transition into autumn.
What do you make of this? Let us know in the comments below!
How do we minimise our climate impact? The climate crisis is here, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and useless in the face of such potential devastation. If you’re wondering if there are ways you can make the situation a tiny bit better, then you’ve come to the right place. Here is a comprehensive list of ways you can minimise your impact on the climate here in the Netherlands.
We address this more later on, but it is absolutely worth acknowledging that individual actions are not the whole story when it comes to climate change. For decades, ordinary people have had the burden of solving climate change placed squarely on their shoulders, when the majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from ten main companies, and when governments have been steadfastly ignoring the situation.
Despite this, ignoring the climate crisis really isn’t an option. That’s why we have put together a list of things you can do to make the situation better, bit by bit.
UPDATE MAY 2020: The coronavirus crisis has devastated the world, but it has had one semi-positive impact: on the environment. Regardless, there’s still a way to go, so keep these steps in mind for the future!
Minimise your climate impact: eat more plant-based food
Food has a massive impact on the climate: next to not flying, altering your diet to make it more sustainable is the best thing you, as an individual, can do for the planet. How do you do that? By including more plants, and eating less animal products. A lot of environmental activists will encourage you to pursue a fully vegan diet — and go for it if that’s something that appeals to you. That would definitely minimise your impact on the climate.
But for a lot of people that isn’t possible, or something they would want to do — so I’m here to tell you that reducing your meat and dairy consumption is a fantastic step in the right direction. Meatless Mondays, or always making your breakfast plant-based, are wonderful options to start with. While you’re at it, check out these 7 amazing vegan cafes in The Hague.
Go for local, plant-based food to minimise your impact on the climate. Image: Pxhere
It’s also important to look at where your food is coming from. There’s no point in being vegan if you’re consuming Kenyan broccoli all the time: for produce to get to us while it’s still fresh, it has to be transported by air. And as we’ve already seen, air transport is bad news for the planet. So it’s best to look for locally, or at least nationally, produced food. In most cities there will be at least one farmer’s market every week — these can be a great source of locally produced food. The best thing about them is that they often lack packaging, whereas in supermarkets the amount of plastic packaging has been growing each year.
For some of us who are that way inclined, growing your own food could also be an option to consider. Most municipalities will allow you to sign up for a community garden space, where you can grow veggies, fruits and herbs. Naturally, this won’t be the only place you get your food: but it is a wonderful way to reconnect to your local environment, while reducing your impact on the planet. But if you have just moved here, get to know the different supermarkets in the Netherlands, and figure out what can work for you.
Minimise your climate impact: protest and act
As we’ve already mentioned, we aren’t going to solve the climate crisis by eating tofu in the comfort of our living rooms (though that is a pastime of mine). We need to force large-scale change through governments and local authorities, as well as on the community level.
The first and most crucial thing you can do in this regard is to vote: and I’m saying this in particular to my fellow twenty-somethings. The elected government has the power to change the way the climate crisis is being handled on a fundamental level- and in turn, they can influence international policy on it. Don’t not vote because you’re disillusioned with the system: not voting is a vote for the status quo.
25,000 people came to the climate protest on 27 September. Image: Teresa Gubern/Supplied.
The second way you can influence governments is by protesting. As we’ve seen recently, young people have been turning out on the streets in droves to demand better action on the climate crisis from the government. Extinction Rebellion has organised acts of civil disobedience as well, whereby their members obstruct the usual functioning of something (traffic, a court, a restaurant) and usually get arrested. Not everyone is able to do this, but history has shown that civil disobedience is the most effective way to change something.
Minimise your climate impact: support innovation
An important way that we can change the course of the climate crisis is coming up with new ideas: the status quo does not work, so we have to find alternatives. This is particularly true when it comes to plastic and energy. Plastic has remained popular not just because it is a convenient by-product of oil production, but also because it’s cheap, light, durable and malleable.
Innovation has brought us some promising alternatives: plastic made from cornstarch, milk protein, grape waste, wood. All of these have been created over the last few years and are biodegradable. There’s no perfect alternative as of yet, but innovation is a crucial way of finding the path forward. The Dutch are already on their way to innovating their way out of the worst effects of the climate crisis. Innovation is also super important when it comes to cleaning up the mess we’ve already made, as The Ocean Cleanup exemplifies.
Green energy will reduce our impact on the climate. Image: Pxhere
Then there’s energy: clean energy is an absolutely crucial part of our future as a sustainable society as well. Innovation has already shown us that implementing it in a low-cost, effective way is totally possible. Now we just have to get on and do that.
A way you can encourage this is by switching your electricity and gas provider to a green energy company, like Vandebron or Green Choice. For every household that gets its energy from these companies, extra green energy will be added to the power grid in the Netherlands.
Basically, the best thing you can do to support innovation is to invest in it when it becomes available to the public- or, if it’s a non-profit, maybe consider donating if you can afford it.
Levi Hildebrand does awesome videos on being a bit more environmentally friendly: check them out!
Minimise your climate impact: create
This might be an odd one to include, but it’s one I feel really strongly about. Let me give you some Marxist theory to explain why I think it’s super important to make more things yourself, rather than simply buying them- and then I’ll explain the environmental implications of doing so as well.
One of the things Marx wrote about was the estrangement of workers from their labour. Basically, as industrialisation took hold, people only made small parts of the final product. They would see it at the end, but have no emotional connection to it. And because humans have evolved to like making stuff, this makes us not only unhappy, but destructive. We care less about the things in our surroundings, because we don’t see them as being made by actual human beings.
In the current day, we consume a lot of stuff, and throw it away easily- think things you buy at Action as an example, but this applies to a lot of other things as well. When you buy from small businesses, or when you make something yourself, this disrupts our usual way of viewing items as disposable.
Making your own food is a great way to minimise packaging waste. Image: ArmbrustAnna/Pixabay
And this is so much better for the environment as well. Reducing the amount of things we send to landfill, and purchasing much less in general, will minimise the amount of resources we use up or waste. If we’re talking about making food items, like pasta sauces, jams, pickles and such, then we can also reduce the amount of food waste and plastic packaging we cause. And, although this isn’t super connected to environmental impact, creating things will likely make us much happier as people.
Minimise your climate impact: travel differently
If you fly once in a year, you double your carbon footprint for that year. Yep, it’s as bad as it sounds. Basically, the number one rule for reducing your climate impact is to find more sustainable ways to travel. Luckily, we live on mainland Europe, so there are viable alternatives to flying.
Going by train is an amazing way to see different countries: plus, it’s smooth, you don’t have to weigh your baggage or go through security, and there’s so much more legroom than you get on Ryanair or Easyjet. Which is nice, even if, like me, you’re a bit vertically challenged.
Travelling by train is a great way to reduce your impact on the climate. Source: Pixabay/ Skitterphoto
Travelling within the Netherlands is also something that can be improved to minimise your impact on the climate. A third of the journeys made in the Netherlands are done by bike, which is fantastic: but I think most of us know we could bike more.
Additionally, in a country as well connected by public transport as the Netherlands, there is rarely a reason to use a car. Plus, by making use of public transport, you’ll be avoiding the farmers and their tractors, whenever they decide to grace us with their presence again.
Do you have any more tips for reducing our impact on the environment? Let us know in the comments below.
Navigating the dating life in the Netherlands comes in many shapes and forms: trying to understand Dutch pick-up lines, starting to learn the language and getting used to the infamous Dutch birthday circle parties hoping that you’ll meet the one there. But one thing most people do is download dating apps like Tinder because online romances are the norm. Consumentenbond (Consumers Association) has just released a survey of 10 dating apps which revealed that some of them do not comply with the Dutch Privacy Law. Yikes!
Consumentenbond, the Dutch non-profit organisation that advocates for consumer protection found that five of the apps surveyed (Tinder, Happn, Paiq, Parship, and 50Plusmatch) displayed advertising cookies before their visitors could give them permission to do so. The other apps surveyed were e-Matching, Badoo, Pepper, Lexa, and Relatieplanet.
This is in direct violation of the AVG or the General Data Protection Regulation in the Netherlands. According to this law, all visitors to a website should give their consent before they can place commercial cookies. With Tinder being the most popular app used in the Netherlands for online dating, this is certainly worrying.
Tinder and its many horror stories. Image: Tumisu/Pixabay
Consequences of this breach of the privacy law
As this law has been violated, the visitors’ personal data could end up in the hands of commercial third parties. For example, Tinder, Paiq and Parship have a direct communication line set up with Facebook’s advertising network. As a result, the person can come across dating ads on their Facebook timeline or even outside of it.
Is it enough to have a privacy statement?
A lot of us might skip reading privacy statements and the fine print that goes along with it. If you were one of them and if you’re thinking you’re in the clear because the app you use does ask for your permission, we have some bad news for you. They also say that apart from e-Matching, all other apps are very vague about their privacy statements. They don’t make it explicit about what personal data they’re collecting and how they’re used.
Follow-up investigation
As the law was introduced almost two years ago, the apps had ample time to adjust their policies, says Sandra Molenaar, Director of the association. The dating sites have been notified of the findings and only Pepper, Paiq, Happn and 50Plusmatch have said that they will revise their policies.
The association has promised to follow-up with an investigation if this is true in all the cases in the short term.
Are you on any of these dating sites? Are you going to be uninstalling, shutting shop and throwing away your phone after this news? Let us know in the comments below!
On Sunday the 27th of October President Trump revealed the death of al-Baghdadi during a solemn announcement on TV. After narrating the dramatic events that lead to his death, he concluded with an expression that had been thrown around all day by media experts and military personal: al-Baghdadi had been brought to justice.
It does give a sense of satisfaction seeing a ‘bad guy’ meet his fate, but how much closer to the end of the fight against terrorism does his death bring us? And, how does the death of the Islamic State’s leader affect the fight for the minds of potential Dutch terrorist fighters? After all, a global jihadist movement is only as powerful as its ability to recruit many and globally.
Recruiting will live on
ISIS is the hipster of all terrorist groups. It has competent recruiters, a well thought online campaign with smashing Twitter accounts that advertised the greatness of the Islamic caliphate in Syria, as well as the glory of living and dying for a world where Muslims were no longer invaded, oppressed and humiliated by western infidels.
Through its glossy, idealistic approach the Islamic State was able to seduce young men and women from all over the world in a way that outdated Al-Qaeda hadn’t been able to do in a long time. But does al-Baghdadi take this potential to the grave with him?
Even though charismatic leaders are important specially when it comes to recruitment, not all lives and dies with them in the global jihadi movement. Groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS follow rules and procedures, and have clear divisions of administrative responsibilities and functions, making it easier to survive the removal of leaders. Some will argue that killing leaders is a good counter-terrorism strategy, and it might be. However, it does not spell the end of the ability of such groups to spread their message, fundraise and recruit.
What attracts Dutch-Muslims to become foreign fighters?
It’s important to remember that the potential of a terrorist group to recruit can only be actualised if it finds fertile grounds to plant seeds and reap the reward. A lot of that process is connected with the feelings of empathy that the hardships Muslims face in Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere, spark on their fellow Muslims around the world. Nonetheless, so much more is connected to the lives Muslims live in their own countries. What are the aspects of life in The Netherlands that seem to impact the most on Islamic radicalisation? Integration, integration, integration.
“To appreciate what stimulates these young people, it is important to understand the harsh truths facing groups, especially in the poorer parts of the country” https://t.co/6EE3ZhMw96
Studies show that second and third-generation Dutch-Muslim immigrants, who are born and raised in the Netherlands, are much more integrated into society than their fathers. They take part in a school system built around Dutch values, speak the language and are Dutch nationals. However, they still encounter social exclusion and discrimination in their daily lives, work place, and sections of the governmental system.
Contrary to popular belief, in certain ethnic Islamic minorities in the Netherlands the most educated are more vulnerable to radicalization. They are more prepared for rising higher in the ranks of Dutch society and, as such, attribute this perceived injustice of social exclusion and discrimination to the prejudices of the established classes.
Torn between two worlds
Other studies carried out with young Dutch Muslims show that they can see themselves under two kinds of threat: a symbolic threat to the Islamic culture, and a real threat to economic status due to discrimination. When this happens they are more likely to see Dutch authorities (and rules) as illegitimate. In extreme cases, they are also more likely to push back, endorsing or engaging in violence.
Personal uncertainty also plays an important role in this process. This happens when an individual is unsure about their identity and/or their place in the world (Who am I? What am I doing here?). Or when their views about themselves and their views about the world are in conflict. That’s why one of the core points of the Dutch government’s counter terrorism strategy is to work with teachers, youth workers, families and religious leaders to avoid and recognise the signs of a radicalisation process.
Unless these issues get addressed effectively, it seems that no matter how many Bin Ladens or al-Baghdadis are killed, some will still find their message appealing. After all, extreme groups and ideas can offer simple answers to their questions and worries. It is comfortable to imagine a big government system can do all the work by surveilling dangerous individuals and avoiding attacks, but it is not enough. As a society we must all work towards the goal of eliminating terrorism by not alienating members of society.
How do you think the Dutch community and government can work together to reduce radicalisation? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.
