As dusk falls, when the European Union offices begin to empty out, dozens, even hundreds, of colorful garbage bags sprout up on the streets of Brussels. Some stand in geometrically neat rows in front of houses. Others, half-open, spill out a slice of pizza, a dirty diaper, a pile of cardboard, or the potato peelings someone has just discarded. In some neighborhoods, crows and mice arrive before the garbage trucks that scoop up the blue, yellow, white, or orange bags on the streets of the Belgian capital, a city without traditional bins.
The scene is disconcerting for a newcomer. The garbage makes no distinction. Piles of bags might lie in front of the brightly lit Dior store, on the most affluent shopping street in the booming European capital, or in front of a Maison de Maître (the typical long, narrow Belgian houses) in the artistic Saint Gilles district. To the untrained eye, it seems like a basic urban management problem: what to do with the garbage in a city that generates one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of waste per person per day, according to official estimates.
“When I arrived in the city, I thought there was a strike… it was incomprehensible to me to see garbage bags in the street several days a week,” says Sofia Pagni, an Italian lawyer who has been living in Brussels for six years. “Now I wonder if we’re in a truly dirty city or if it’s just like any other, only here the garbage is visible, and in other places, like Rome or Paris, it’s hidden and organized…” she remarks on a narrow sidewalk overrun with garbage bags piled in small heaps that are starting to get soaked by the light Belgian rain.
The plastic landscape is not a sign of administrative collapse. It is simply Brussels’ waste management system, where, unlike other European cities, containers are hardly used (neither public nor private ones) and where a door-to-door collection model for sorted waste in colored bags is the primary system.
This is one of the first things you need to learn, because the collection schedule varies by street. For example: on Wednesdays in the late afternoon, the regular yellow bag (for paper and cardboard) and the white bag, containing non-recyclable waste (from diapers or soiled paper to eggshells), are put out; on Thursday mornings, the orange bag, with organic waste; and on Sundays, the blue bag, with packaging and plastics.
Adel Lassouli, spokesperson for Bruxelles Propreté, the public agency responsible for waste collection in the Belgian capital, explains that the system has historical and urban planning reasons behind it. It began when waste wasn’t sorted and everything was simply thrown into a bag and left on the sidewalk. “Brussels is a densely populated [1.2 million inhabitants] and urbanized city. With public containers, you have to consider space, where to place them… And we’re not talking about a new city, but one with a very old urban fabric. So it was natural to opt for door-to-door collection,” he says.
Lassouli also points out that the current system promotes waste separation, which then aids recycling. In Brussels, around 40% of household waste is recycled, and the goal is to reach 60%. The spokesperson for the waste collection agency also states that the real problem is people putting out their bags outside of designated hours, not sealing them properly, or leaving furniture or belongings abandoned on the sidewalks. There are fines and mandatory attendance at a civic responsibility and waste separation course for those who violate the rules, but there are only 20 inspectors for the entire city, to conduct random checks on 580,000 households.
The waste disposal system is also a result of the lack of homogeneity in the city, divided into 19 municipalities, with fragmented powers and major economic differences between neighborhoods.
The government is now considering implementing a container system in the city, for which a budget of approximately €12 million ($14.1 million) has been allocated over the next three years. The challenge, officials say, is finding space for them. “If they are above ground, that might mean fewer parking spaces. And if they are underground, an idea that is gaining traction, we have to take into account the city’s topography, with its gas and water pipes running beneath the surface,” says Lassouli.
The issue of waste management is a recurring debate. Those who defend the current system fear that the containers will attract illegal dumping and further degrade public spaces. Critics point to Brussels’ image of decline, the European capital that often resembles a garbage dump.
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