In an effort to eliminate disruptive delivery trucks driving through its picturesque streets, the Belgian city of Bruges approved plans Tuesday to create an underground pipeline for transporting beer.
Agence France-Presse reported the pipeline is set to connect the historic De Halve Maan brewery to a bottling factory two miles away, eliminating the 500 trucks that drive down the city's small streets each year.
De Halve Maan, a major fixture in Bruges, is a UNESCO World Heritage site that hosts 100,000 tourists each year. However, residents of the city in northwest Belgium became concerned about the loud trucks traveling through the cobblestone streets, and the brewery offered to fund the pipeline.
"The idea is born of environmental and quality of life concerns, and not economic ones," the company's director Xavier Vanneste said, according to AFP.
The pipeline is designed to carry more than 1,500 gallons of beer each hour, according to Belgian publication deredactie.be. It is also expected to reduce transportation time to the factory.
"The beer will take 10 to 15 minutes to reach the bottling plant. By using the pipeline we will keep hundreds of lorries out of the city center," Vanneste said.
The project is one of the first of its kind, with only one other similar structure in existence in Germany. Construction is set to begin next year, according to AFP.
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