Homes could have to put rubbish out in bins, not bags

Piles of bin bags outside every front door in Brussels on collection day could become a thing of the past, under a new proposal to make households put out their waste in plastic bins.

The draft order, which has the support of the majority in the regional parliament, has been tabled by member of parliament Benoit Cerexhe, the mayor of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre.

He said his municipality alone spent €160,000 a year cleaning pavements of waste from bin bags torn apart by crows or foxes.

The text would give each of the region's 19 municipalities the freedom to make bins compulsory for general household waste (white bags) and food waste (orange bags), either for all homes or in a defined zone.

A town council could, for example, require bins to be used in the least densely populated neighbourhoods, where there are mostly individual houses. "We're not going to impose bins in smaller apartments," Cerexhe said.

A spokesman for Bruxelles Propreté said the waste collection agency was keen to take part in a consultation. It is broadly in favour of the idea, but added: "It will inevitably have an impact on how collections are made."