Container gardens ensure more greening, involvement, biodiversity and water adaptation in the city and for less litter around underground containers. In other words, they transform dump sites into valuable public space. Since June 2020, container gardens have been on display in Amsterdam Oost, Nieuw-West, Zuid and Centrum. The CityGard container gardens are circular gardens around underground containers. Henk-Jan Room and Martin van Diggelen believe in a positive way of changing behavior instead of signs, fines and restrictions and that is why they came up with these gardens, which are made from recycled plastic from the 3D printer. The gardens contribute to more greening, involvement, biodiversity and water adaptation in the city. In addition, it can also help with the rat problem in Amsterdam: less waste around the containers means less food for vermin.
Container gardens in Amsterdam Oost (photo of CityGuard via Rainproof)
Residents adopt a container and at the same time take care of the maintenance of the plants and containers. Container gardens tempt people to look at their environment differently. An unattractive, dirty steel container turns into a cheerful, green place. Research has shown that thanks to this involvement through container gardens, 78% less waste is placed next to the containers.
