While most partygoers are turning over in bed this Wednesday morning, the cleaning crew in Den Bosch is up before dawn. A big challenge awaits, because there is a lot of rubbish in the city after the Eleventh of the Eleventh celebration. “We don’t have to be bored,” says Henny Bekx, who has been keeping the streets of the provincial capital clean for 25 years.
It is still pitch dark when the cleaning crew starts the mega job at five o’clock: cleaning the city where around 100,000 revelers celebrated the start of Carnival on Tuesday. Sweeper truck driver Henny is one of the cleaners. “Compared to other years, this year is extremely dirty. The weather has of course been nice. When it rains, there is less waste,” he explains.
The team consists of fifteen people, together they form a well-oiled machine: everyone has their own task and route. Some people walk through the streets with a leaf blower to blow away the trash. The sweeper then drives over it to swallow up the dirt. When the machine is full, it is unloaded at the Market.
There is a lot of waste that is collected again by the large garbage truck. “I come across all kinds of things this morning, because people throw all kinds of things on the ground,” says Henny. “That is a disadvantage. But on the other hand: then we have something to do, right? I just haven’t found any money yet, unfortunately,” he jokes while he is busy cleaning up the area around the station.
Pam de Bont is also in town early. She is the coordinator of the cleaning operation and tells what she encounters. “You have to take a look around. It is littered with cans, packaging material, chip containers, Flügel bottles and even Oeteldonk scarves. You can see that a good party was held there. I once found a pair of shoes, neatly next to each other by a lamppost. Then you wonder what the story is behind them.”
There are also many confetti cannons, and Pam and Henny would rather not encounter them. “They ensure that the sweeping trucks become clogged. Then the drivers have to crawl under the truck to remove such a tube again. That is dirty and it slows things down,” Pam says. Henny had already suffered this fate: he had to crawl under the car to free the pistons.
“I wouldn’t want to miss it”
Yet Henny walks almost all morning with a big smile on his face. He has been doing this work for about 25 years. “It is my passion. I first started with a small sweeper truck, and for a few years now I have been driving a larger one. That makes the work enjoyable.” Normally Wednesday is the day that Henny is free. But not this Wednesday. “I wouldn’t want to miss it,” he says. “You get so much credit from your work.” He’ll take a day off on Friday.
Cleaning in the early morning, like now, is always a challenge for Henny, Pam and their colleagues. There are also trucks at this time that supply the shops, and in the meantime the market is being built up. They are used to it: everyone works around each other.
Pam thinks that most of the work will be done during the morning. “People who entered the city this morning probably thought ‘there was a good party going on’. But when we leave the city again, you hardly see anything of it anymore. And that’s nice.”
After today, the cleaning crew’s work is not quite over yet. Because the sweeper trucks will also drive through the city on Thursday to make all the sidewalks shine again.
