The wrong calendars for the collection of household waste accidentally appeared on the Bruxelles Propreté website on Monday due to an IT problem, just a week after the waste collector sent Brussels residents a letter to check their new schedules online.
The mistake caused confusion among Brussels residents and the website has since been taken offline. However, waste collection agency Bruxelles Propreté stressed that the incorrect schedules do not have an impact on the timing of the waste collection.
"Our web bag collection calendar is temporarily unavailable due to a computer error. In the meantime, Bruxelles Propreté is asking Brussels residents to stick to their usual schedules. These IT malfunctions have no impact on bag collection," a statement on the agency's website reads.
"The agency is sincerely sorry for the inconvenience and is doing its utmost to remedy the situation quickly," it added.
'Everything had changed'
Last week, Bruxelles Propreté sent a letter to all Brussels residents, in which the directors reiterated the obligation to sort and recycle rubbish. The agency also urged residents to take out their recycling and household waste on the right day and on time.
The letter also included a QR code to view the collection schedule for each street (schedules may have changed slightly due to the newly-introduced joint collection of green and orange bags in some municipalities). After entering the street and house number, people could see a weekly schedule for collection days of the white, blue, yellow, orange and green bags.
However, several Brussels residents noticed that the calendar on the website looked completely different from the one which they had been following up until now.
"I just went to check my street's calendar on the website as the letter suggests, and suddenly everything had changed," said former Anderlecht Councillor for Cleanliness Elke Roex (Vooruit) on Facebook. She also wondered when the new calendar would take effect, as the letter does not mention timings.
Credit: The Brussels Times
Residents from Schaerbeek, Forest, Etterbeek and Saint-Gilles also stated that the weekly calendar has changed, Bruzz reports. In other municipalities, including parts of the City of Brussels and Ixelles, the calendar has not changed.
Bruxelles Propreté confirmed that many streets had an incorrect schedule on the website, but added that it is not yet clear what went wrong.
Since Monday 22 July, the green and orange bags have been collected together in 11 Brussels municipalities: Ixelles, Etterbeek, Evere, Ganshoren, Haren, Jette, Laeken, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Auderghem, Berchem and Forest, as well as in certain neighbourhoods in Schaerbeek and Anderlecht.
