If necessary, Sjoerd de Boer rolled incorrectly placed containers to Utrecht city hall to draw attention to the waste problem. With success: the municipality came up with new rules. But it doesn’t mean his fight is over.
When you walk through the city center of Utrecht with Sjoerd de Boer, you suddenly see the public space from a completely different perspective. He points out the billboard blocking the sidewalk, guides for the blind on which bicycles are parked, and especially waste containers in places where there should be no waste containers.
‘Look,’ he says, for example in the Lange Viestraat, where a bus races past every minute. ‘Do you see that container over there, in that alcove of that empty building where the Rabobank used to be? It shouldn’t be there. But because few people live here, nobody makes a report. And because there is no reporting, no enforcers come. They are case-oriented. They only act on notifications. That’s insane, isn’t it?’
De Boer (52) has been concerned for years about the state of the city center of Utrecht, especially when it comes to waste. In doing so, he regularly achieves success. Partly thanks to his indignation, new regulations for industrial waste have been in place since this summer. And that makes a difference, he says. Although there is still enough to ‘bleat about’, as he calls it.
Rubbish on the street
Sjoerd de Boer’s waste adventure started a few years ago, when he heard that a branch of the Spar would be opened on a busy corner in the city center. He immediately thought that was a bad idea, because such a supermarket has to be stocked regularly and also produces a lot of waste. He warned the municipality, but could not stop the arrival of the store. “From day one there was rubbish on the street.”
De Boer reported to the municipality, but did not receive the desired response. That’s why he decided to post pictures of containers and bags on Twitter. ‘Sunday evening half past eight’, he wrote in the summer of 2019. ‘There is again illegal waste from the Spar and other companies around the Mariaplaats. Care to comment @GemeenteUtrecht?’
Not much later, an underground container came near the supermarket. “That’s when it was over for me,” he says. “I made my point.”
To the town hall
Until in the spring of 2021 he started to get annoyed by the large mobile containers that were sometimes parked for days on the Viebrug in the center. “As a corona measure, the bicycles had to go,” he wrote in June with a photo of the bridge on Twitter. ‘Smelly industrial waste containers are of course allowed.’
More photos followed, such as the one on August 21, which shows that the entire bridge is full. ‘Enforcement knows about it and looks away’, De Boer noted, ‘because they don’t know who owns the industrial waste containers.’
At the end of September, he was fed up. He announced on Twitter that from now on he would personally roll containers that blocked the sidewalk at night to city hall. And he did.
More actions followed. ‘Who will help put industrial waste containers at the town hall tonight?’ he wrote on Twitter on January 24, 2022. Four or five people responded. And two enforcers also reported to the announced spot that evening. ‘They told me that there were no rules for industrial waste,’ says De Boer. That’s why they weren’t allowed to enforce. That’s bizarre, isn’t it?’
No penalty yet
When asked, the municipality of Utrecht paints a slightly different picture. There were indeed agreements with companies that collected the industrial waste, says a spokesperson, but these were laid down in a private law contract. If the agreements were not complied with, the municipality could not send a boa, but this had to be brought to the attention of the court.
The rules have now been laid down in the so-called Collective Implementation Decree. This states that containers must be provided with an identification sticker, so that they can be traced back to their owner. The document also states that companies in the city center of Utrecht may put their containers outside on days that they are emptied between midnight and 5 p.m. Boas are allowed to enforce these rules.
This has been happening since the summer, although according to the spokesperson it is ‘a process that must take time’. A total of 46 entrepreneurs have now received a warning letter, six received a second warning, two of them a third. This is followed by a penalty, but the entrepreneur has not yet had to pay.
Incidentally, it is not true that boas only come to reports, says the spokesperson. One evening a week, a couple of enforcers go looking for abuses themselves. On the other days, they work on a case-by-case basis.
without sticker
The city center has been renovated considerably since those rules were introduced, says De Boer. Take the Drakenburgstraat that connects the Neude with the Oudegracht. “It was always an unbelievable mess here.” That is not so bad, although there are still a few illegal wheelie bins on this Monday evening.
‘Look, this one doesn’t have a sticker,’ says De Boer, while studying the containers. ‘And those boxes over there? They shouldn’t be there either. The old paper will not be collected until Wednesday. They’re from that Greek restaurant. Look, it had olive oil in it.’
Elsewhere in the city things are not always going well, says De Boer. Recently there was a whole row of packed wheelie bins without a company sticker on the Jacobibrug. ‘The municipality said they didn’t know who they belonged to, but that’s nonsense. It is always the same entrepreneur. Besides, they can do research, right? They also open garbage bags from private individuals in search of an address. They just don’t care.’