Brussels residents build garbage wall around town hall to protest service cuts

Residents of the Kuregem neighborhood in Anderlecht, Brussels, took a striking protest action Sunday, constructing a wall of garbage around the local town hall. Approximately 80 inhabitants participated, using waste they had collected from their streets that morning to highlight the severe waste management issues plaguing their district.

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A few weeks ago, the municipality decided as a cost-saving measure that its sanitation services would no longer be active on weekends.

The protest stems directly from a recent cost-saving decision by the municipality to cease weekend waste collection. Charlotte Inghels, a Kuregem resident and one of the protest's organizers, explained that this measure is particularly problematic for Kuregem, which is situated between the busy Sunday market at Zuidmarkt and the daily Abattoirs. These locations generate significant amounts of waste, especially over weekends, which now goes uncollected.

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Three months, that's after the summer, this cannot drag on like this.

Inghels stated that the residents' previous appeals to the municipal government were met with little hope, as a local alderman suggested a new team might not be available for three months – a timeline deemed unacceptable. "Three months, that's after the summer, this cannot drag on like this," she said. The collected waste wall, therefore, served not just to clean the streets for a day but to visibly demonstrate the daily reality faced by residents and to issue a clear call to action for the authorities.

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The goal was not to clean the neighborhood for one day. The goal was to make visible what residents experience daily and to direct a clear appeal to the authorities.

The protesters are demanding the immediate return of weekend waste collection services, along with increased resources during peak times like summer. They also called for more public trash bins, appropriate collection solutions tailored to the neighborhood's needs, and respect for the working conditions of sanitation staff. Crucially, they seek an integrated waste management plan developed collaboratively with residents, associations, schools, and businesses, emphasizing that residents cannot be expected to take over core governmental responsibilities.

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We cannot take over the core tasks of the government as residents. Without the municipality's sanitation services, the neighborhood cannot cope with this.