Join us Fishing for plastic in Haarlem. Is 2026 your year to help us make Haarlem’s river (Spaarne) and canals the cleanest in the Netherlands?

De Pinguïn (Penguin) Haarlem is an unforgettable experience with a purpose.

Give just a couple of hours to join us aboard our very special boat, and enjoy a tour around the sights and sounds of Haarlem while making the water plastics-free. Visit Haarlem and make a difference.

The cost? Your time, interest, enthusiasm and human capital. As a stichting (non-profit), however, we welcome donations too – just scan the QR code once you’re aboard.

How To Book A Seat For Plastic Fishing In Haarlem?

You can either visit https://depinguin.org/vaar-mee/ (Dutch only) and find a space in the boat for our regular Saturday afternoon sailing.

Or to arrange an extra sailing on another day, I’m your native-English (UK) speaking captain. Contact me about De Pinguïn.

For large groups or corporate events, please contact De Pinguïn through the website.

Why Plastics Fishing in Haarlem Makes a Difference

Everybody enjoys sharing Haarlem’s water, it forms the historic heart of our city. The river and canals are our playground. We sail, we swim, we relax by it, we enjoy its beauty. It is our lifeline – we depend on it and nature depends on it. But we are polluting it. An increasing amount of our plastic waste unfortunately makes its way into the water, and then flows into the North Sea and contributes to the harmful plastic soup. That is not our intention, is it?

We started an initiative inspired by Penguins. With help from the enthusiastic and caring people of Haarlem we aim to keep our nest clean. We fish the plastic waste out of our river and canals all year, and everybody is welcome to join us aboard our electric sloop. Through fishing for plastic in Haarlem, we can together keep the waterways clean, both today and into the future.

Experiment

All waste in Haarlem’s water inevitably reaches the North Sea sooner or later, and De Pinguïn conducted an experiment (link in Dutch) to prove this. We released our TrackJack in Haarlem so everybody could follow the flow of waste from the city to the sea. While our tracker floats on the surface, the plastic waste is pulled underwater into an undercurrent that moves it faster without surface effects, such as wind. It is important that our tracker remained on the surface, transmitting its GPS signal; we therefore expected De Pinguïn’s TrackJack’s journey to take longer than other waste hidden beneath the surface.

Important: we continually monitored this experiment, and ensured all experiment resources were removed from the water before they reached the North Sea.

Plastic Waste Diary

• Day 1 Our tracker is dropped in the water at Gravesteenbrug, Haarlem. The wind and the Heemstede pumping station pull it in a southerly direction.
• Day 2 Our tracker floats back towards Haarlem, eventually reaching Gravesteenbrug again and floating past.
• Day 3 The wind causes our tracker to float briefly in the Kloppersingel before it returns to the Spaarne, from where it is once again blown into the side canal near de oude oerkap / het milieuplein. Once the current has increased, our tracker quickly flows up the Spaarne towards Spaarndam.
• Day 4 Our tracker reaches Spaarndam overnight and floats near the Molenwerf before the Spaarndam pumping station is put into operation. Plastic usually continues its swift journey to the North Sea at this point, but our tracker is stuck behind the pumping station’s grates.
• Day 5 Our tracker is stuck in front of the pumping station, and we investigate. Plastic easily passes through the pumping station, so it is reasonable for us to move the tracker passed the pumping station. Unfortunately, we cannot find our tracker, so we patiently wait to see what happens next.
• Day 6 Our tracker’s GPS tracker suddenly reappears in the Boezemkanaal, meaning it has passed the pumping station without our help. By the end of the day it has reached the north of Het IJ at Spaarndam.
• Day 7 The Spaarndam pumping station is put into operation again, at which point the undercurrents sweep a lot of plastic towards the North Sea Canal. Our tracker appears to be too buoyant and is pushed southwards via the western side of Het IJ.
• Day 8 Our tracker remains floating in Het IJ at Spaarndam, on the south-western side. We suspect it is trapped by scaffolding somewhere, so we do not intervene because pumping operations begin again tomorrow, and we expect it to then continue its journey unaided.
• Day 9 Our tracker is most likely still bobbing under scaffolding west of Het IJ at Spaarndam.
• Day 10 Finally free, our tracker continues its journey! The previous day’s heavy rain and pumping operations allowed it to float to the north of the IJ at Spaarndam.
• Day 11 Our tracker has crossed the IJ at Spaarndam and got stuck in the reeds on the north side. It continues moving, a few metres at a time.
• Day 13 After a few days stuck in the reeds, our tracker is freed late in the evening, presumably dislodged a strong southerly current, sweeping it in the direction of zijkanaal C. By midnight, Our tracker is 100 metres upstream, back on its journey to the North Sea!