What extraordinary finds!
Have you ever asked yourself what sort of stuff accumulates at the bottom of a canal after fifteen years? In early 2016, the Saint-Martin canal in Paris was drained for the first time since 2001, so that it could be cleaned. Over the years, the canal had become the home of quite a collection of special things. What they found? You’ll find out here.
You cannot ignore it: the Saint-Martin canal. The canal cuts straight through the city of Paris, especially through the northeast of the city. Together with the Saint-Denis canal, it forms the connection between two parts of their more well-known family member: the Seine.
The canal runs from the Place de la Bastille to the Bassin de la Villette and is about 4550 meters long. In 1802, Napolean Bonaparte had ordered the digging of the canal. The Saint-Martin canal was completed in 1825.
The canal is quite popular with both Parisians as well as tourists. It is a place where you can relax with a book during the day and enjoy a drink by the water at night. Unfortunately, a lot of trash is thrown into the water. That’s why, after fifteen years, it was time to thoroughly clean the canal in 2016. With many extraordinary finds as a result?
In 2016, Paris decided to drain the canal.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Hha5uIkBM/
Image: Canal Saint-Martin by Blair-39 under licence CC BY-SA 2.0
An ordinary day at the canal
It was a day like any other on the banks of a river canal. In the past, it had had a grandeur, a reputation, an appeal and a sense of welcome for the people of the region to spend time there.
Much of what the workers have found up to now is quite fascinating and incredible. It’s not just pieces of gum or a small piece of paper. No, it’s hard to imagine what people have thrown into the canal over the years.
Want to see what the channel is hiding?
Image: IMG_2798 by flightlog under licence CC BY 2.o
A dam in the canal
To clean the canal, it had to be cleaned by a side-to-side water dam dewatering process. This way, the trash could be separated from the water.
This was certainly not easy. It was a long and hard job, that required a lot of resources. Cranes had to close the canal with huge concrete slabs that served as dams. However, the system, which was set up to allow the drainage of the canal by blocking one side to the other, is effective. This way, the waste is obstructed, allowing for easy cleaning of the canal.
Image: Unsplash
Catching fish
Before the canal could be cleaned, the works went to catch fish to prevent them from being killed during the cleaning process.
The canal cleaners chose an old, but proven method to catch fish: nets, buckets and hands. Everybody worked hard to get all the fish out of the canal as quickly as possible.
Image: Unsplash
Many, many fish
The aim of the fishing operation was to protect the fish from the cruel clean-up operation, which involved draining the canal.
During the fishing campaign, fish of all shapes and sizes and of many different species were found in the canal? But what where they supposed to do with all those fish?
Continue reading to find out what happened to the fish.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMkHf48o1nu/
Counted and sold
The workers caught so many fish, that they did not really know what to do with them. Eventually, they decided to sell the fish. Each fish was weighed and identified before being offered for sale. Every single one!
Of course, this was not the most idea solution for the fish, but it beat letting them die in the lifeboat and throwing them in the trash after they died.
Read more about how the cleaning operation was performed
https://www.instagram.com/p/CJjNQpTJwLM/
Interesting finds
Cleaning the canal might not be an easy or rewarding job, but it sure is interesting. Aside from all the different species of fish, the workers also encountered a lot of special things.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGXROEqAqYq/
Check and identify
The clean-up crews had to check and identify all items that they recovered from the canal during the cleaning operation. They found cool stuff, but also a couple of disgusting things that had remained hidden in the canal for all those years. For example, they found a suitcase, the origin of which Is unknown. Only as the canal was being cleaned did all these objects resurface.
Image: Unsplash
A traffic cone
A traffic cone is not something you expect to find in a canal. Still, a lot of these orange-white cones were found in the Saint-Martin canal.
Much to their surprise, the canal cleaners also encountered a shopping cart in the Saint-Martin canal. How it had ended up there? Nobody knew. But one thing was clear: the shopping cart did not belong in the water. Curious to find out what else they found in the water? Continue reading
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGNChBIlPTP/
Bicycles
It was not just shopping carts and traffic cones they found in the canal. The cleaners also encountered bicycles.
Of course, a bicycle is used to get from A to B on land. Why one would throw their bicycle into the canal? No one understands…
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBrCxunHTdi/
Even more bicycles
No, they didn’t just find a couple of bicycles. Not even a few dozen. No, the cleaners recovered mountains of bicycles from the Saint-Martin canal.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXgSpZIhg72/
Tables
Apparently, a lot of people had needed to get rid of their tables, since the cleaners found a whole lot of them in the canal.
Was it students who threw tables into the canal for fun? Or polluters who don’t think about the impact their actions could have on the environment. People who throw away their stuff into the water, don’t realize that not only are they polluting the water in the canal, but they’re also killing aquatic animals.
A shopping bag
A shopping bag is useful for taking your groceries home from the supermarket. It is best to use a reusable fabric bag. Unfortunately, there are still many plastic variants that are in use. If thrown into the water, they can be very harmful to water, the environment and aquatic animals.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMlzphQJgO5/
Motor scooters
Why on earth would you throw a motor scooter into the canal? We do not know. Still, two motor scooters were found in the Saint-Martin canal.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_PP410DDUS/
Even more bicycles
Just when they thought they had found enough bicycles, the cleaners found even more bicycles in the canal.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGzfxpxnhoM/
Mysterious blocks
Concrete blocks that are usually used in building houses, roads, bridges and dams were also abundantly present in the canal. Construction work in the canal? That does not sound likely. It’s a curious object to throw into the water to say the least. Not particularly practical either, such a heavy block.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CD69-abBXwv/
Cas of beer
The number of empty beer cans that were found in the canal is easier to explain. On warm sunny nights, it is usually crowded with people enjoying a nice drink along the canal.
Did you finish your beer? Just throw it in the trash, and not into the water.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CC74EX1HfRD/
A couple of old bottles
The cleaners found a couple of old bottles in the water. They probably once held alcoholic beverages, such as wines or liquors. They probably came from the same parties along the waterfront…
https://www.instagram.com/p/CD8vQV-prUm/
A lot of trash
What it comes down to, is that the cleaners found a lot of trash in the canal. It is bizarre to think about how much waste had accumulated in the Parisian water of the course of 15 years.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CE9i7eEpeI6/
Important lesson
From all these finds from the canal, we can conclude that the canal has become a dump for the entire city. Locals stopped throwing their waste in the trash or taking it to a landfill – no, the canal had become the place to throw it away.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLy3LFVBejm/
Severe consequences
Polluting the water has severe consequences. For example, it kills more than a million sea birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals every year. It costs the town hall billions of euros as well, which the city can better spend on other things.
Source: Soolide | Image: Unsplash, Flickr, Instagram