Cause of the failure of the door-to-door garbage collection model

As dusk falls and the offices of the European Union begin to empty, dozens or hundreds of colorful garbage bags sprout on the streets of Brussels. Some stand in geometrically regular rows in front of houses, while others are half-open, spilling food, diapers or cardboard scraps.

In some neighborhoods, crows and rats arrive in front of the trucks that collect these bags on the streets of the Belgian capital, a city without traditional garbage cans. The scene is disturbing for any newcomer.

Heaps of bags lie indiscriminately both in front of the luxury store “Dior” on the richest shopping street and in front of typical Belgian houses in the artistic districts.

To the untrained eye, this looks like a fundamental problem of urban management for a city that generates about a kilogram of waste per person per day.

“When I arrived in the city, I thought there was some strike. It was incomprehensible to me to see garbage bags on the street”- says Sofia Pagni, an Italian lawyer who has lived in Brussels for six years.

Now I wonder if we are in a really dirty city or if here the waste is simply more visible, while in other places like Rome or Paris it is hidden and organized”- she adds.

In fact, this landscape of plastic waste is not a sign of collapse. administrative, but a rule of the waste management system of Brussels. Unlike other European cities, there are hardly any public or private containers.

The system is completely based on the door-to-door collection of waste sorted into different colored bags. This is one of the first rules you have to learn, as the schedule varies according to the street.

For example, on Wednesday afternoons the yellow bag is taken out for paper and non-recyclable. The orange bag is taken out for organic waste on Sundays.

Adel Lassouli, spokeswoman for the public agency “Brussels Propreté”, explains that the system has historical and urban reasons. It started when the waste was left on the pavement. very old urban. In the case of public containers, you have to take into account the space where to put them, so it was natural to choose door-to-door collection,” he says.

The current system aims to promote recycling, it currently occupies 40 percent of the total and aims to expand to 60 percent. According to the agency, the real problem lies in citizens who take out bags of garbage after hours, do not close them properly or who leave furniture on the sidewalks However, in order to control 580,000 families and impose fines, there are only twenty inspectors in the city. This system is also a consequence of the fragmentation of the city into nineteen municipalities with large economic differences land they remove parking spaces, while the underground is blocked by gas and water pipes.

While the debate continues, critics point out that this model is seriously damaging the image of the European capital, making it often resemble an open garbage dump

Source: prizrenpost