Like in many other towns, cities and municipalities in Belgium the residents of the 19 municipalities that make up the Brussels-Capital Region use bin liners when they put out their rubbish for collection. The bin liners are official standard bin liners authorised by the regional refuse collection agency Net Brussel. They come in various colours according to the type of waste they are to be used for, yellow for paper, blue for plastic and cans, orange for food waste, green for garden waste and white for residual waste.
Like elsewhere in the country, in Brussels only official bin liners can be used when you put the rubbish out. However, as you may have noticed there is a big difference in the price charged for official bin liners between Brussels and the rest of the country.
For example, a roll of 15 white Net Brussel bin liners costs 1.50 euro (10 cent/bin liner), while people that live in Namur have to pay 10 euro for 20 bin liners (50 cent/bin liner). Bin liners are even more expensive in the Flemish Brabant city of Leuven. There it costs 14.50 for 10 bin liners, 14.5 times more expensive than in Brussels.
A reader of the Brussels regional news platform Bruzz asked why in the capital bin liners are so much cheaper than elsewhere in Belgium. According to Bruzz, this is because in Brussels refuse collection is carried out by a regional agency Net Brussel.
In Flanders and Wallonia refuse collection is carried out by so-called “Inter-communal” waste collection services. These are services that have been set up by groups of municipal and/or city authorities. In Brussels Net Brussels receives funding from the regional government and the relatively low cost of bin liners is the result of a political decision by politicians in the Brussels Regional Parliament.
The more you throw away, the more you pay
In both the Flemish and the Walloon region it is possible to impose a fixed or variable charge for refuse disposal. This enables local authorities to opt for a system whereby those that produce more rubbish pay more to have their refuse collected. The idea behind this is to encourage the public to produce less waste. In Brussels the regional agency NET Brussel is financed by means of a block payment from the regional government. In Brussels there is no tax on official bin liners and the market price is charged for them.
Another difference between Brussels and elsewhere is that bin liners for waste that can’t be recycled are the same price as bin liners for recyclables such as plastic and cans or paper. Elsewhere, bin liners for non-recyclable waste are more expensive than (for example) blue bin liners. This is in order to encourage people to recycle.