Dutch Try to Clean Up ‘Trash Can’ of Europe

Labor, industry and the government are joining in a crusade to save the fast-deteriorating environment of the Netherlands, described by a union chief as the “trash can of the continent.”

Not only does pollution come from the Netherlands’ own post-World War II industrialization, it also flows down the Rhine River from chemical plants in Switzerland and West Germany.

The pollution issue has been played down by officials in recent years, although others have issued repeated warnings about the air, water and soil, but now unprecedented steps for the Netherlands apparently are about to be taken.

The 900,000-member Federation of Dutch Trade Unions has linked up in the save-the-environment effort with its traditional sparring partner, the Dutch Organization of Enterprises, industry’s major umbrella group.

Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers joined in on the government’s side. He told a group of foreign reporters: “One of our major future aims will be to establish an economic structure that safeguards the ecological balance.”

Queen Voices Concern

Queen Beatrix devoted her entire traditional Christmas address to the environment.

“Slowly, the Earth is dying, and we think about what was previously unthinkable--the end of life itself,” she told her subjects.

The new crusade reflects an unease in the Netherlands over the declining quality of the environment, which only a few decades ago was virtually unpolluted.

In recent years, the Dutch media have reported on the pollution of drinking water by pesticides and herbicides spilled into the Rhine River by Swiss, West German and Dutch chemical plants.

Acid rain, attributed mainly to nitrates rising into the atmosphere from manure used in Netherlands’ huge agricultural sector and the country’s 5 million cars, is rapidly becoming a prime environmental threat.

Polluted Housing Sites

One chemical dump after another is being discovered under housing developments built in the 1960s and under new golf courses. A recent government report estimated that about 9,000 heavily polluted sites are scattered all over the Netherlands, leaching noxious substances into the ground water.

The Netherlands is a prime manufacturer of chemicals, petroleum products and electronic equipment.

“Care for the environment is such an essential task . . . that I do not hesitate to say that for us, (it) is the top priority,” said Jan Kamminga, the chairman of the Dutch Assn. of Small and Medium-Sized Industries.

“Dutch companies should accept their responsibility . . . and contribute substantially to the solution of the problem.”

With 100,000 affiliated companies employing 1 million of the Netherlands’ 14.6 million people, the association is one of the major players in the Dutch industrial field.

Joint Effort Announced

After Kamminga made his remarks in a speech, Johan van Stekelenburg of a trade union group and Chris van Leede of the industry group held a news conference to announced their joint effort to save the environment.

They said they would include environmental issues in the collective bargaining process.

“Our declaration will not instantly change the world, but it commits us to take such (environmental) issues into serious consideration,” Van Leede said in an interview later. “It is not an empty promise.”

“We must clean up the Netherlands, which is rapidly becoming the trash can of the continent,” Van Stekelenburg said.

“Given these huge problems, the industry and union initiative can only be a beginning,” said Marijke Brunt, a spokeswoman for the Nature and Environment Foundation, one of this nation’s most influential conservationist organizations. “If they fail to implement a radical restructuring of Dutch industry within 10 years, it will be too late.”

Huge Investments

Such a turnaround of the Dutch industrial complex would involve huge investments in purification plants, research into alternative manufacturing technologies, and the development of new products that are harmless to the environment, such as biodegradable plastics.

Controversy is brewing, however, over the question of who will pay for a cleaner environment, the cost of which no authorities have even dared estimate.

Prime Minister Lubbers told the foreign reporters: “Pollution is not the result of activities of the government. . . . We will have to pay together, as companies and citizens.

“There is economic growth. Let’s not add it all to profits or personal income, but use part of it to improve the environment.”

Industry’s Kamminga, differed. He said that for the export-dependent Dutch industry, “an unbridled rise in the production costs . . . would be attempted suicide.”

“There must be a substantial government contribution,” he said.

Future Worries “One of our major future aims will be to establish an economic structure that safeguards the ecological balance”, says Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers of Netherlands.