Evere takes action against illegal dumping at clothes donation bins

The Brussels municipality of Evere plans to test new measures to combat illegal dumping at overflowing clothes donation bins.

Evere collected 377 tonnes of clothing last year, more than one tonne per day. This comes with its share of problems, including that clothes are often mixed in with rubbish and left outside the bins.

“We pass by [the donation bin] often and it’s always like this, it’s deplorable,” one local resident told RTBF.

Concerns were raised by municipal councillor Alexandre Larmoyer (MR) at the last Evere municipal council meeting.

“The bins are regularly emptied by all kinds of people,” Larmoyer said.

“They let children crawl into the bins and take out all the clothes, which then end up on the street. It becomes a dumping ground. Rubbish attracts rubbish.”

French-speaking non-profit organisation Terre has been responsible for managing the clothing containers since 2016 through an agreement with the municipality.

“We often find rubbish next to the bins and we have to pick it up too,” a Terre spokesperson said. “Our truck is then full of clothes, but also illegal rubbish.”

While Evere has reduced the number of collection points from 15 to 12, the municipality said it wanted to increase the capacity of the containers and has tripled the frequency of collections, which will increase from once to three times per week.

But “there is no miracle solution”, according to mayor Alessandro Zappala.

Among the other options being considered is placing certain containers underground in order to reduce illegal dumping and dangerous practices, as is already done in Jette.

The cost of this would be borne by Terre, which notes that it takes a lot of time and money.

The municipality also plans to double the number of surveillance cameras at the most problematic sites in an attempt to identify those responsible for illegal dumping.