Workers Part (PTB) legislator Bruno Bauwens on Friday criticised Brussels Minister of Public Hygiene Alain Maron (Ecolo) for not keeping a commitment to limit to 10 the number of communes affected by the reduced collection of white trash bags.
According to Bauwens, Minister Maron will reduce the number of collections of white (unsorted) household waste bags in 15 communes out of 19 in Brussels from 15 May.
The minister’s office disputes this claim.
The PTB accused the minister of “lying.”
“The abolition of a collection is indeed on the cards in several central communes such as Schaerbeek, Molenbeek, Forest, Ixelles and Etterbeek,” Bauwens charged.
He said the decision to abolish a collection of white bags will make the city dirtier and complicate the lives of the majority of people living in small homes and unable to store several full bags for long.
Many people will end up preferring to risk a fine rather than have a smelly kitchen, Bauwens said, predicting that “the number of illegal dumpsites will surely increase.”
According to the office of the minister for public hygiene, the collection plans for refuse bags do not always follow the exact administrative boundaries of the communes. Some routes cross two municipalities, and their residents need to be provided with a consistent, coherent collection and bag-out schedule.
In some “adjoining” roads, white bags are collected twice a week, whereas the municipal system is once a week. In other “adjoining” roads, the opposite is true.
In both cases, these are exceptions and the general rule prevails in the municipalities concerned, the minister’s office said.
