Milestone in Nijmegen: more than half a million paving stones removed
Publication, Healthiest Generations
NIJMEGEN - Last year, Operation Steenbreek in Nijmegen once again succeeded in its goal of replacing at least 100,000 paving stones with greenery. A total of 125,470 paving stones were removed. After four years of the Steenbreek (‘break a stone’) campaign, more than half a million paving stones have been removed.
The aim of the campaign is to encourage private individuals, organisations and the government to remove as much pavement as possible to create more space for plants, flowers and insects. This also allows rainwater to sink into the soil more easily, which helps to prevent drought stress. And it helps in the prevention of heat stress, a phenomenon that causes heat to be trapped in urban areas.
More greenery through garden workshops
An example is the new housing project in Nijmegen-Noord. To prevent new gardens from being paved over, the new residents were invited to participate in garden workshops. For this, Steenbreek teamed up with area developer VanWonen and housing association Talis. “We create homes and living environments for the healthiest generations. We aim to incorporate this into the design, which is why we have offered all residents a garden design. The idea behind this is to create more green spaces and strengthen biodiversity,” adds Martijn van Essen, Sales Manager at VanWonen. Residents were given advice, were invited to look around in existing gardens, and participated in a community activity day.
Dutch Paver Whipping Championship
New in 2021 was the Dutch Paver Whipping Championship, a national event that has the same goal as Steenbreek. The goal was to remove as many paving stones as possible between 30 March and 30 September. Nijmegen was challenged by Arnhem, which won the ‘derby’ by a narrow margin. The Dutch Championship was a success: a total of 1.5 million paving stones were removed nationwide. Hence, the competition will be held again this year.
