On Tuesday the mayors of Blankenberge and Ostend (both West Flanders) expressed their displeasure at the large amount of rubbish left behind on beaches by tourists on Monday. Footage of beaches strewn with litter has been doing the rounds on social media. The mayors say that local authorities do all they can to keep the beaches clean, but some people simply have no respect for the environment.
Monday was the hottest day of the year and in addition to tourists that were already holidaying at the coast many thousands of day trippers made their way to the coastal resorts of West Flanders. However, many of the tourists that visited the beaches left their rubbish behind. The situation was particular bad in the busiest seaside resorts such as Ostend and Blankenberge.
The mayors of Ostend and Blankenberge say that their respective local authorities had installed additional rubbish bins and deployed extra staff to keep their beaches clean. The acting mayor of Ostend Kurt Claeys (liberal) told VRT News that the state of parts of his city’s beaches on Monday evening “Makes me angry”.
4,000 litres of rubbish collected by volunteers
Volunteers from the not-for-profit organisation Proper Strandlopers collected 4,000 litres of rubbish from beaches in Ostend on Monday evening. The organisation’s Tim Corbusier says that this is "An absolute record. We've never collected so much rubbish before”.
It was the same story in Blankenberge. Mayor Björn Prasse (liberal) told VRT News "They simply don't learn, or don't want to learn. I can understand that some bins are full, but there are enough bins on the front to dispose of your rubbish. The only thing we can do is carry out more checks on litter louts. Perhaps once people have been fined, they will stop leaving rubbish next to the bins or on the beach."