Cleanliness: regional brigades and immediate fine collection

RPD commitments

The Regional Policy Declaration of 13 February 2026 devotes a chapter to public cleanliness, identified as a major citizen concern.

Agency reform

• Reform of the Brussels Cleanliness Agency (ABP) — reorganisation of collection and improved working conditions

Collection infrastructure

• Underground containers and compactors — deployment in high-density neighbourhoods
• Special rapid intervention unit for "Cleanliness"

Cleanliness brigades

• Creation of regional cleanliness brigades — coordinated regional and municipal agents
• Deployment of smart cameras in areas at risk of illegal dumping

Sanctions

• Immediate fine collection for observed offences
• Combating illegal waste importation from other regions

Illegal dumping: "waste tourism" (2025)

Data from the City of Brussels reveals the scale of the illegal dumping phenomenon:

• 7,731 fines issued in 2025, up 61% compared to 2024
• 36.7% of offenders are non-residents (2,837 out of 7,731) — the so-called "waste tourism" phenomenon, driven by the price of rubbish bags being ten times lower in Brussels than in surrounding municipalities
• Total fines amount: approximately EUR 1.16 million in 2025 (7,731 fines)

The Region plans to deploy underground containers in high-density neighbourhoods and to reinforce enforcement through smart cameras, in line with the RPD commitments.

Nitrous oxide: 2025 operational data

Bruxelles-Propreté collected 75 tonnes of nitrous oxide cylinders in 2025, of which over 50 tonnes came from clandestine dumps. The total cost of safety and treatment measures amounts to €12 million, of which €9 million is a direct charge on the agency's budget.

A shredder installed since June 2025 enables cylinders to be neutralised before incineration. Incinerator explosions decreased by 37% (from 797 to approximately 500) and operational shutdowns by 29% (from 35 to 25 per year).

Since March 2024, a royal decree prohibits the sale and possession of nitrous oxide for recreational purposes. However, Bruxelles-Propreté considers the legislation insufficient, as it relies on buyers' oral declarations.

Extended Producer Responsibility: €51.4M/year (13 March 2026)

The Brussels Parliament approved on 13 March 2026 the ordinance transposing the inter-regional cooperation agreement on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for single-use plastics (EU SUP Directive). Producers (packaging industry and tobacco sector) will pay €51.4 million per year to the Brussels Region (€26.7M from 2026), of which:

• 54% to municipalities for funding litter clean-up
• 46% to the Region for regional cleanliness policies

Covered products include disposable plastics, cans, cigarette packaging and filters, wet wipes, balloons, and chewing gum. The agreement provides for the possibility of extending EPR to new waste streams (furniture, textiles, disposable nappies).

This ordinance, expected since the 2020 SUP Directive, was adopted with PVDA and Vlaams Belang abstaining. The Flemish Parliament has yet to approve the text.

Source: BRUZZ, 13 March 2026.

Deliberative Committee on Cleanliness

On 23 January 2026, the Brussels Parliament voted to create a 7th deliberative committee on public cleanliness. Forty-five randomly selected citizens and fifteen MPs will formulate recommendations on waste management and urban cleanliness. It is the first committee of the new legislature.

Source: Brussels Parliament, January 2026.

Bruxelles-Propreté strike: 18-20 March 2026

Bruxelles-Propreté has announced a three-day strike from Wednesday 18 to Friday 20 March 2026 inclusive. During this period, only white bags (residual waste), orange bags (PMC) and green bags (organic waste) will be collected. Blue bags (paper-cardboard) and yellow bags (glass) left out despite the instructions will remain on pavements until the following week.

Priority is given to waste posing a health risk (organic and residual).

Day 1 update (18 March): disruptions were limited, with 80% of staff active. White and orange bags were collected at 100%. Blue and yellow bags remained on pavements. Recycling centres (recyparcs) were closed (except Humanité). In Ganshoren, mobile recycling park events scheduled for 18-20 March were cancelled. Day 2 update (19 March): more significant disruptions — 38% of trucks remained at the depot (62% of rounds completed). The neighbourhoods of the City of Brussels (Canal, Louise), Forest, Ixelles and Saint-Gilles were most affected. The Humanité recycling centre remained closed.

Sources: BX1, RTBF, La Libre (16 March 2026), BRUZZ (18-19 March 2026).

Waste collection reform (19 March 2026)

The Secretary of State for Public Cleanliness announced on 19 March 2026 a major reform of household waste collection:

Frequency changes:

• Yellow bags (paper-cardboard): from weekly to biweekly collection
• White bags (residual waste): removal of the second weekly collection in 11 municipalities (Uccle, Watermael-Boitsfort, Auderghem, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Evere, Jette, Ganshoren, Koekelberg, Berchem-Sainte-Agathe, part of City of Brussels)
• Organic waste: strengthening of biweekly collection in dense neighbourhoods

Bulky waste — differentiated strategy:

• Dense neighbourhoods: underground containers + collective sorting spaces
• Less dense areas: door-to-door collection maintained
• 100 new sorting spaces in the short term

Orange bags (organic waste): reinforced collection in dense neighbourhoods — switching to biweekly frequency.

Budget: EUR 315 million (vs EUR 313M in 2025) + EUR 28 million dedicated to the Midi station (security + cleanliness).

Staff impact:

• 65 workers reassignable thanks to route rationalisation
• 180 anticipated departures in 2026 (of which 165 in operational roles)
• 250+ vacancies in 2026
• Without a hiring exemption: risk of losing one third of door-to-door routes, closure of all 6 regional Recyparks and discontinuation of container collection for high-rise housing (including social housing)

Timeline: implementation not before 2027, possibly 2028. The Secretary of State has requested a hiring exemption to fill 2026 vacancies.

Sources: L'Avenir, La Libre, RTBF, BX1 (19 March 2026).

Cleanliness-violation fines: enforcement declining since 2023? (2 July 2026)

According to a parliamentary question reported by BRUZZ on 2 July 2026, the number of fines issued for cleanliness violations in Brussels has fallen 18% in two years: 3,782 fines in 2023, 3,727 in 2024, 3,107 in 2025. MP Benjamin Dalle (CD&V) considers the level of enforcement insufficient given the scale of the phenomenon. Net Brussel has 18 cameras and 21 full-time equivalents assigned to enforcement. Nearly half of the 2025 fines (1,514 out of 3,107) concern sorting errors, while recorded illegal dumping cases fell to 478.

Source: BRUZZ, 2 July 2026.

Coordinated cleanliness operation at Midi station (16 July 2026)

On 16 July 2026, Net Brussel and the municipality of Saint-Gilles held a coordinated cleanliness operation around Midi station, with the police, SNCB and STIB in attendance. Approximately 5 tonnes of waste were removed. The operation is presented as the launch of a future 'Station Plan', championed by Minister-President Boris Dilliès, who wants a security-cleanliness-homelessness plan for Midi station. It echoes the €28 million already allocated to Midi station (security + cleanliness) in the 2026 regional budget.

Sources: BRUZZ, 16 July 2026; L'Avenir, 16 July 2026; DH, 16 July 2026.

City of Brussels cleanliness levies: the increase has taken effect (1 August 2026)

The doubling of cleanliness levies announced by the City of Brussels, documented above, has been in force since Saturday 1 August 2026. The new amounts as reported by BRUZZ:

The same article gives the enforcement record for the first seven months of the year: from 1 January to 31 July 2026, the City of Brussels issued 5,403 levies for public cleanliness offences, including 3,244 for fly-tipping, around sixty per cent of the total. By way of comparison, the full year 2025 produced 7,731 levies, a figure already documented higher up on this card.

Two attributions:

• The City of Brussels alderman for cleanliness puts the cost of processing all this waste in 2025 at 2 million euros.
• His spokesperson states that one fine in four concerns people who do not live in Brussels. That figure is not directly comparable with the 36.7% of non-residents documented above for 2025: the reference periods differ and the counting method is not specified in the article.

Source: BRUZZ (2 August 2026). Confidence: estimated (a single press source quoting the municipal administration and its alderman; the tax regulation voted by the municipal council was not consulted directly).

Bulky waste: 74,169 m³ collected in 2025, one-to-twenty gaps between municipalities (2 August 2026)

In answer to a parliamentary question, the regional minister for cleanliness released the volumes of bulky waste collected by Bruxelles-Propreté in 2025, municipality by municipality. The regional total comes to 74,169 m³.

The gap between Schaerbeek and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode is a factor of twenty. No explanation for this gap is provided by the ministerial answer as relayed by the press: the minister describes the applicable procedure (prior declaration by the citizen, on-site check, traceability through a collection voucher) without commenting on the disparities between municipalities. Plausible factors such as population density, rental turnover, the share of collective housing or a competing municipal collection service are not documented in the source and are therefore not offered here as an explanation.

Two further figures complete the 2025 picture: 3,464 households were invoiced for a deposit exceeding the three cubic metres granted free each year, for a total amount of EUR 78,369.06.

These volumes are to be distinguished from fly-tipping: the bulky waste counted here comes under a declared collection service, not an illegal dump.

Source: La DH (2 August 2026). Confidence: estimated (Bruxelles-Propreté data communicated in a parliamentary answer and relayed by a single press source; the parliamentary answer itself was not consulted in the Brussels Parliament records).

Sources and methodology

The commitments documented above come from the official text of the RPD (chapter 10) and from concordant press sources covering the government agreement of 12 February 2026. Nitrous oxide operational data comes from the official Bruxelles-Propreté communiqué of 10 February 2026 and the BX1 report of 17 February 2026.