Friso Bos
“Administrators are made of Teflon. Whenever they can, they look away.”
Friso Bos, journalist at Noordhollands Dagblad, operates at the intersection where politics, industry and public health meet. The trigger: the controversial use of steel slag in dikes, roads and construction projects — a “by-product” of Tata Steel that, when in contact with water, can leach, raise pH levels and release heavy metals.
What begins as technical jargon, Bos unravels into a story about responsibility, information asymmetry and the cost of looking away.
“You see that the lobbying from companies toward politics is very strong.
When a critical report appears, a busload of lawyers is ready to downplay it.”
Bos first encountered the issue through residents and local administrators who had been raising concerns for years. The pattern quickly became visible: signals of health and environmental risks, a fog of bureaucracy, and a legal grey area in which steel slag is no longer classified as waste, but as a by-product.
This allowed it to be used on a large scale — from dike reinforcements to playgrounds — often accompanied by certifications that suggest reassurance, but say little about real-world conditions.
“Warnings have been there for ten years,” Bos says. “The problem is: administrators are made of Teflon. Getting something on the agenda rarely works, unless you hold on and keep returning to it.”
According to Bos, contractors had a clear financial incentive. Steel slag carried a negative price — you were paid per cubic metre to take it, with logistics often arranged. Sand, by contrast, had to be purchased and transported.
“If you really want sand, and you make the effort, you’ll find it,” he says. “But that incentive played a role everywhere.”
He finds the argument that there was insufficient sand available at the time, at the very least, questionable.
The issue becomes concrete at a monitoring well near a residential area. Benzene levels rise faster than officials had predicted for years — from “hundreds of years” to decades, and now: present-day reality.
The steel slag acts as a press: its weight pushes contaminants upward. Rainwater is mildly acidic; water with a pH of 10 or 11 is not.
“That slag is part of the problem here is beyond doubt,” Bos says.
Inspections and reports confirm that current regulations are insufficient to protect environmental and public health.
“RIVM and the Inspectorate say: this is not enough to protect health and the environment. Yet an old legal ruling is still waved around as if it applies everywhere.”
Crucial is that legal ruling, originally issued for a specific situation. In practice, it is used as a general license to apply steel slag widely.
When Bos presses regulators, he is told that the competent authority — often the municipality — must assess each project individually. Meanwhile, suppliers point to that same ruling to reassure municipalities.
A legal ping-pong game, with real consequences in the soil.
In the neighbourhood, unrest grows. Residents organise themselves in WhatsApp groups with hundreds of members. The municipality takes control of communication, organises information evenings — but at times seems more focused on framing the unrest as a media effect.
“No,” Bos says. “The unrest exists because a toxic plume is moving toward your neighbourhood. It depends on how you frame it.”
At one such meeting, when he tried to take photographs, he was nearly asked to leave.
“The town hall is public space,” he replied.
Journalism, here, is not incidental.
“You see how important the steel company is for the region. Pride and employment can sometimes make people blind to the other side.”
Reports, parliamentary questions and motions on reporting obligations — even calls for a ban on steel slag — show that momentum is building. At the same time, new product names emerge — duomix, graustabiel — in which steel slag is processed and reintroduced into public spaces through certification.
“You know what’s in this material,” Bos says. “You shouldn’t want this.”
Nieuwsuur mapped 115 locations. Bos suspects this is only the tip of the iceberg. Tata Steel produces around 650,000 tonnes of steel slag annually — for decades.
“Where has it all gone?”
The only party that knows exactly is the supplier. Transparency through freedom-of-information requests stalls; calls go unanswered.
“Maybe this requires political or legal pressure.”
Bos sees genuine intentions within Tata Steel Netherlands to transition, but doubts whether the Dutch branch truly holds the steering wheel.
“Too dependent on India,” he says.
Years of deferred maintenance are catching up. Installations must be monitored around the clock to prevent incidents. Government influence is limited: enforcing standards is the primary tool, since Tata owns both land and installations.
“You have very few instruments to steer,” he says.
It makes the transition fragile.
Bos, together with Bart Vuijk and Oscar Spaans, received the Dutch journalism prize De Tegel, and later joined Nieuwsuur. The response was overwhelming.
“It’s confronting to realise that a TV segment can sometimes have more impact than months of investigative reporting.”
Still, he remains measured.
“I loved doing it. And when I watch it back, I think: take it easy, man. That’s part of the job.”
“In the end, persistent local journalism forces authorities to stop looking away.”
For Bos, the issue goes beyond a single dike or polder.
How does the Netherlands deal with waste that, through legal pathways, ends up reclassified as raw material in our living environment?
As long as certificates outweigh context, and legal rulings are stretched beyond their intent, the conditions for repetition remain in place.
“I hope the transition succeeds, and that the region can feel proud again — including for the health of workers and residents.”
But first: map it, stop it where necessary, and remediate where possible.
And keep asking: who knew what, when — and who is responsible?