The frantic fight against visible waste in Enschede – with the cargo bike as the battlehorse

An expat in pink, fuzzy slippers pushes the door open with her foot, her arms full of boxes: Zalando, Nike, Thuisbezorgd. She smiles and says in English: “More to come.”

Tim van der Made, waste collector on an electric cargo bike, tackles the items and then sorts the cardboard in his covered bin. His colleague and project leader Rik van Esch, who is participating in this elimination round, looks surprised. “Then you live here and have everything delivered.” He points to the shops in the street in the center of Enschede.

Waste shows who someone is, says Van Esch. “Lazy or not, rich or poor, concerned with the world or indifferent.” Van der Made nods as he accepts a bag of residual waste from the woman. “Students often throw everything together: cigarettes and beer cans mixed with waste paper.” Many expats, he says, who are amply represented here in the city center of Enschede and often only live in the Netherlands for a short time, do not fully understand the idea of ​​separating waste. Van der Made: “Or they do not want to understand.”

Every morning in the city center an elaborate choreography is performed by cleaners. Even before the shopping streets fill up, the center is the domain of cleaners. Heavy leaf blowers drive the dirt to the gutter, where sweepers pick up the mess. Tiles are sprayed clean. Garbage trucks roar through the quiet streets – those trucks are still there, collecting waste from companies.

11,200 trash cans

Since April, electric cargo bikes have also been whizzing through every working day. They visit twelve houses an hour. Van der Made presses the bell and waits. “Your rubbish, please.”

The inhabitants of the city center of Enschede were less and less satisfied with their living environment, says Timo Kemerink op Schiphorst, who is project manager center at the municipality. “Something had to change.” In addition, the center must be a ‘zero-emission zone’ by 2024, with drastically fewer transport movements. The municipality has therefore introduced a new way of collecting waste. Most of the heavy waste trucks have been pushed out of the center and the garbage collectors come by appointment.

Tim van der Made used to be an installation technician for smoke detectors, now he does about five collection services a week. “It’s… different,” he says.

Van der Made is a beacon in the life of the sleepy student who opens the door at nine o’clock in the morning in her black and white Adidas pajamas. “Tim is my regular face during the week,” she says in a croaky voice. The new working method has something “old-fashioned”, says Van der Made. As if he is the greengrocer at home in a village from days gone by. “I suddenly know a lot of people in my hometown.”

waste charges

On the one hand, it is a luxury, says the student, that the waste is collected at home, but it is also inconvenient. “You have to stay home for it.” People can schedule the pick up, but not at an exact time. Only in a two-hour block, anywhere between eight in the morning and six in the evening – and only on weekdays. The student takes some getting used to. “It is like waiting for a package, but that is waiting for something nice. You want to get rid of this quickly.” The interim survey also shows that people are mainly dissatisfied with the time slots.

The way waste is disposed of is constantly changing. In the 1970s, the Kliko, which is also called the Otto in Twente, was introduced in many places to hide garbage from view as much as possible. In the 1990s, the underground waste bin was introduced, which can now be found everywhere. The ugly gray bags of rubbish on the street, which also attract vermin, became increasingly undesirable. Waste had to disappear as invisibly as possible.

It’s like waiting for a package, but that’s waiting for something nice. You want to get rid of this quickly

Student about waste collection

A growing number of municipalities now find the underground waste container, where people can put their bags in at any time, not invisible enough. This is mainly due to the additional placements: waste that people do not throw in the container, but put it next to it, for example because they have lost their card or the container is full.

In Enschede and a growing number of municipalities, residents have to pay per waste bag: 1.25 for forty litres. The more residual waste and other poorly reusable waste they offer, the higher the waste levy.

This frantic fight against visible waste is because we have started to attach more value to hygiene and a tidy living environment, says Kees Keizer, employee of the University of Groningen and adviser on behavior and experience. He advises municipalities on waste. “We have researched that litter on the street leads to even more litter on the street and that people in shabby neighborhoods behave worse. Waste is entangled with other rule violations.”

Waste on the street also has a great influence on how people feel, Keizer knows. “When people see rubbish on the street, they think: apparently someone cares about my neighborhood and me. That sensation is similar to what you feel when someone pushes ahead. It keeps people very busy. Waste is an engine for dissatisfaction.”

Waterbed effect

“I am not happy with this at all,” says a man who opens the door with his hands full of bags – organic waste, paper, glass and residual waste. “I just work, so I have to puzzle a lot in my schedule to have waste collected.” It’s not his only obstacle. “We have small houses on this block, so you can’t hide your rubbish somewhere,” he says. “I have much more problems with flies in the house because my organic waste stays longer.” It feels to him as if he suddenly has to do his very best to get rid of his garbage, while he considers it a task for the municipality to facilitate him in this. “On the other hand, it was not good at first. Back then there were all underground bins here, but there was a lot of rubbish around them.”

Perhaps the collection times will be extended, says Timo Kemerink at Schiphorst of the municipality. “But we first want to see if it works this way, because if we have to have people work in the evening or at the weekend, it will cost a lot more.”

Although there are still few concrete figures, collector Tim van der Made has noticed that people are becoming more meticulous in their waste separation. “If I see that they have added residual waste to the plastic, I point it out to them. The next time I see that they have become tidier.” The first analyzes also show that waste is being separated better – precise figures are not yet available.

Of the 1,900 households in the city center, 1,300 have registered for the app you need to order the waste bike – 700 actually use it. People without the app probably throw their waste in underground containers just outside the center. As a result, there is a waterbed effect, says Kemerink at Schiphorst. “The pressure on the edges of the city has increased.”

Steel flower boxes

The containers, which all Enschede residents can use with a waste card, fill up more quickly. And now more waste is being added to those places. The municipality is trying to counter this with camera surveillance. The pressure on the trash cans in the center is also increasing. Kemerink on Schiphorst: “They are now emptied more often.”

When is this project a success? The city must be perceived as cleaner, among other things, says Kemerink on Schiphorst. This should become apparent from various surveys that will be conducted during the course of the trial. There is still little material for comparison with other municipalities, because it is not yet a widespread phenomenon.

Waste is intertwined with other rule violations

Keith Keizer advisor behavior and experience

In Waalre in Brabant, they stopped using the waste bicycle in 2019 after a two-year trial. The residents there had just gotten used to it, but the city council determined that it was not good for the appearance of the streets if waste was placed twice a week. The collector did not ring the bell there, but picked the garbage from the street. In addition, the residents there had to pay an extra 11 euros per year for the sustainable method of collection. Since May 2021, a trial has also been underway in various places in Amsterdam to collect waste with electric cargo bikes – no conclusions have yet been drawn from this.

At the places in Enschede where there used to be nineteen underground waste bins, there are now steel flower boxes. “We have not yet filled the holes with concrete, because we first want to know whether the test will become final.” That will be decided in April 2024.

To make a new waste system a success, citizens should in any case not have the feeling that it is being pushed down their throats, says consultant Kees Keizer. The zeitgeist for adjustments is favorable, he thinks. “Separating waste is becoming more and more moral: you are not competing with the municipality, you are doing it for the environment.”

Also read this article: Digging in waste without a sender: Tiel fights against stubborn dirt