Maximum cascading and high-quality reuse

The new HOV bus lane in 't Gooi runs right through a forest area. To create space for the construction of the new asphalt road, Van den Broek removed 10 hectares of forest and a number of solitary trees. All released raw materials were cascaded to the maximum extent and reused in a high-quality manner. 

"A couple of years ago, we were approached by BAM Infra Nederland during the tender phase to clear the trees and process the stumps," said Jeroen Bookelmann, chairman of the board at Van den Broek. "In June 2019 we reached an agreement and in October 2019 we started the implementation. All in all, we were on the project continuously for about six months. During that period, we eliminated the major bulk. Following that, we were working in phases until March of this year on the last 10%, due to agreements BAM had made with the surrounding area and pending logging permits."

Limited accessibility

At the start of the project, Van den Broek had to make his way through the forest area. "We only had access to two access roads to drive in and out of the area," recalls Evert van den Broek. "This is because the area is adjacent to a railroad and, moreover, we needed to relieve the municipality of Hilversum as much as possible. The limited accessibility certainly brought with it the necessary challenges in the beginning, also with regard to taking precautions in case of possible calamities, etc. After all, that all has to be secured in advance." But a contractor can entrust that to Van den Broek. The 1932 family business has all the disciplines in-house to handle a project from A to Z independently. Bookelmann: "We also hitch a ride on national contracts with partners such as the Forestry Commission, so that we can guarantee sustainable sales and maximum cascading of the raw materials that are released to our clients."

From crown to roots

The uprooted trees for the construction of HOV in 't Gooi were reused from crown to roots, according to Van den Broek. "The trees were felled and the wood cut into sortiments for sustainable use. Much of the released raw material has been put to social use in the region at the initiative of the province of North Holland. The lower quality wood was disposed of to the wood processing industry and all branches and top wood were shredded as raw material for bioenergy plants. A total of 1,500 tons of raw material was released from the area, which we carried out entirely with our own equipment. We are one of the few tree harvesters in the Netherlands with our own Harvester, a special forestry machine that fully automatically cuts and shortens tree trunks." 

Van den Broek is fully equipped to handle all forestry work, tree felling for infrastructure works and tree replacement projects. "We have a 5-hectare storage yard with its own quay in Lienden. Here we handle the storage and transfer of wood products and process poplar wood into raw material for the paper industry," Bookelmann concludes.