Hard work has been done in recent days to make Maastricht at its best for the royal family. Thursday the hands will be rolled up again to get the city clean again.
About 40,000 revelers visited Maastricht for King’s Day. And they created a lot of waste.
2,000 kilos
“We had expected rubbish, but it wasn’t that much. It is comparable to carnival,” says Kuipers, Cluster leader for urban cleaning, in the L1 Nieuwsshow. It is estimated that approximately 2,000 kilos of waste are on the Vrijthof. “We are 80 people working on leaf blowers and sweepers. We hope to be ready by noon at the latest.”
Transformation
On the Vrijthof are McDonald’s packaging, cans of beer and plastic bags that revelers have left behind. Kuipers mainly thinks about the transformation. “When it’s cleaned up, I always think ‘Chapeau, we’ve fixed that again’. Then you can see very well how much work you have done.”
city park
The city park, where the free market was held, has not been spared either. “We find furniture such as cabinets and tables, but also clothes and books.”
Bicycles and road signs
In order not to disturb the king’s route, various objects were also removed from the city, such as road signs and bicycles. “About 500 bicycles have been removed,” says BOA Rick van den Boorn. Last Friday that started at restaurant Achter de Comedie because the NOS had to build up there. Anyone who thinks they are just student bikes is wrong. Some electric bicycles were also taken along.
Relatively few bicycles collected
The expectation was that between 500 and 1000 bicycles would have to be removed, but in the end it was not that bad. Van den Boorn does expect that many bicycles will not be collected. “That has been the experience of the past 15 years. About 60 percent of the bicycles remain here. They eventually go to, for example, the cycle and get a second life there.”
Free pick up
Many students use a Swapfiets, but the company does not have to worry about missing a lot of bikes at once. “People can pick up their bicycle free of charge until June 15. They must then bring a key to the lock and an ID proof. And it has also been agreed with the Swapfietsen company that they can simply pick up their bicycles.”
Needle in a haystack
“We have tried to make it as easy as possible to find your bicycle with signs. For example, they contain the street name and date with where and when the bicycle was removed. So we can give an indication of where the bicycle could be, but it is always a good search,” says Van den Boorn.