Waste bags and paper are piling up across the Brussels-Capital Region and blocking roads, including along the long Chaussée de Gand, after several collection rounds have been cancelled.
One local resident told Bruzz that the situation has become extreme over the past few weeks: paper has not been collected three times in a row and the collection of the white bags was also skipped.
"The road becomes narrower because of the waste mountain. That creates dangerous situations. I was almost run over by a truck. My children also cycle on Chaussée de Gand, so that is not good."
The delayed collection rounds and the subsequent mountain of waste along the street(s) are the results of a recent strike at the Brussels Propreté waste collection agency; staff are resisting plans to organise nightly collection rounds from May.
During the week of action and strikes in the public services last week, they demonstrated along with firefighters, mobility services and other public services staff to make their protest clear. This week, employees of Brussels Propreté started collecting all the uncollected waste.
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The agency asked its staff to work extra hours to collect it all, but the employees refused to work overtime. As a result, they experienced even more delays in collecting the bags this week.
Brussels Propreté spokesperson Etienne Cornesse told Bruzz that the backlog will be caught up by tomorrow (Friday). From then on, normal garbage collections should resume in full.
