Clean City

A unique piece of Amsterdam is currently being developed on Zeeburgereiland: the Sluisbuurt. A neighborhood with a very high population density. There will be as many as 5,500 apartments, mostly high-rise. That means 375 homes per hectare. So there will be a relatively large amount of waste. That is why the municipality has been looking for a new way of collecting waste, a system in which transport is not by road but underground. It is therefore called: Underground Waste Transport System (OAT). Residents can deposit their garbage bags inside their building in a number of inlets. There are always four inlets side by side: one for residual waste, one for GFE (Vegetable, Fruit and Food Waste), one for OPK (Old Paper and Cardboard) and one for PMD (Plastics, Metals and Drinking Packs). These inlets, equipped with an internal buffer, are connected to a pipe system in the ground. They are extracted in turn, even several times a day if necessary. The piping system ends at a terminal, where the waste is collected species by species for disposal to incinerators or other final stations.

Van Schie’s share within the project covers the construction of the entire system of transport pipes (total length: 4 kilometers) plus the building connections, including all earthwork and trenching. The entire underground system consists of HDPE pipes with a diameter of 33.5 centimeters, fitted with a composite inner layer. Besides the construction of the pipe system, Van Schie is also responsible for the realization of the terminal building and the installation of the weighbridge inside the building. It is expected that the first part of this entire system can be put into operation by the end of 2024. How the sequence of the construction of the further pipe systems proceeds depends on the development of the remaining housing sites. All in all, an innovative and novel project where Van Schie will be working a lot in the coming years.