Now that the Brussels-Capital Region's new waste collection calendar has been in place for several months, people who take out their waste bags outside the permitted time frames will be fined from 1 October.
The Bruxelles-Propreté collection service will continue to raise awareness and issue warnings for another two months, but from October, inspectors will also actually issue fines to people who put their rubbish bags on the street outside official hours.
Fines will start at €50 to €100, but could go up to several thousand euros. Glass that is not properly sorted can be fined €150, and electrical items €300.
'Best balance'
The fines will not only be imposed when people take out the garbage outside the official times, but also when food waste is not properly sorted – now, it has to go in the orange bag. Putting paper, plastic and glass in the white bag has been forbidden for a while.
Since May, Bruxelles-Propreté has had a new schedule for collecting the rubbish, which has been criticised in certain neighbourhoods where people now only have two hours to take out the rubbish (between 18:00 and 20:00). Noticeably, there are (still) many waste bags on the streets the next day.
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The organisation acknowledged that the two-hour rule can be difficult, but emphasised the necessity. "This is the best balance," a spokesperson told Bruzz: the municipalities do not allow putting waste outside before that time, because "visual pollution" is already there at an early stage. Putting the waste out after 22:00 means that the services are busy with the collection until late at night, which would cause noise nuisance.
The new rubbish collection calendar for all municipalities can be found on the website of Bruxelles-Propreté, the body responsible for waste collection and street cleaning in the region. By entering your address here, you can find out on what bags to put out on which days.
