Tineke Menalda on her front doorstep in Amersfoort Photograph: Senay Boztas/Guardian

Weeds are part of nature, whether we like them or not. Thanks to Senay Boztas and the Guardian for this new take on weeds from Holland:

‘We need to accept the weeds’: the Dutch ‘tile whipping’ contest seeking to restore greenery

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A pile of ‘whipped’ paving stones in the village of Raalte.

National competition has goal of helping Netherlands reach environmental targets by removing garden paving

Tineke Menalda sits in the sun on her front step, nursing a cup of coffee and idly plucking out the odd weed. Three years ago, the front of her terrace house in Amersfoort was completely paved. But now, sitting in a lush garden of trees and green, she is an official ambassador for the strangest new sport in the Netherlands: tegelwippen, “tile whipping”, or “whipping away” the paving stones.

“A lot of people think that tiles are easier, but actually when you have larger trees, you get very few weeds underneath them and you can make it really easy,” she says. “When I had paving I would never sit here, but now it’s a garden, it’s cooler in summer and in the spring, it’s lovely.”

Two weeks ago, the starting gun fired for the NK Tegelwippen, a lighthearted competition where, up to October, municipalities compete to get rid of the most paved infrastructure. The “tile table” is currently dominated by Venlo in Limburg (14,636 whipped away, 144 per 1,000 residents), with Menalda’s Amersfoort in third rank (3,271) and the Dutch capital Amsterdam trailing with just 2.

Remco Moen Marcar, the founder of the initiative, came up with the “playful” idea during Covid. “People were sitting at home … and of course there were no [football] championships,” he says. “So we thought: let’s host one between Rotterdam and Amsterdam, our clients. One always wants to be the best when it comes to soccer, so let’s use this as an incentive for people in those cities to clear the tiles out of their garden.

“You’re a happier person when you live in a green surrounding, so every slab you flip is 900 square centimetres of potential happiness. You’re also healthier and, if that’s not enough, there are the big problems we are facing with climate change.”

Read the whole article here.