At the time when peat was being excavated around Vinkeveen, boatloads of peat went to Amsterdam and other major cities. They used this to heat their houses there. Those boats did not return empty. Van Wijk: “This was the garbage dump of Amsterdam.” Sludge, farmyard manure and other “misery” that they could not use there came back with them. This waste was then used to fill the holes left by the peat cutting plant. This is how the ‘toemaakdek’, as they called it at the time, was born. A layer of soil that covered the bottom.
Contaminated gardens are being cleaned up after centuries: ‘This was the waste dump of Amsterdam’
