Quality and safety
According to the jury verdict of the Netherlands Standardization Institute (NEN), the careful management of dense watercourses speaks of great social relevance. For example, controlling unwanted rooting water plants has the least possible environmental impact. The decisive factor in awarding the NENnovation Award was Harkboot's initiative to develop an NTA for the raking method. Because: if market parties make voluntary agreements about the quality and safety of their products, services and processes, these standards will contribute to the successful development and scaling up of innovative concepts.
'That's exactly why we set to work developing a Technical Agreement,' says Sterk. 'Overgrowing aquatic plants are a recurring problem, whether they are invasive exotics or native species that grow excessively. Traditional mowing promotes growth and is therefore necessary much more often, which is expensive ánd risky for the ecological balance. With the raking method, cleanup is necessary at most once every few years, because you remove plants with roots. This is quite radical, so the raking method really has to be applied with care. To guarantee quality and safety, we took the initiative to lay down these standards in an NTA, specifically for all unwanted rooting aquatic plants.'