2023-12-06 10:43:00
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Cureghem is not a walk in the park for these workers in the municipality’s cleaning service. “We do 20 – 30 bags on average. Sometimes we go up to three rolls (60 bags). In other sectors, it can be calmer, sometimes only 2 bags per agent for a tour.” A small bonus would be welcome.
“In Cureghem, drugs circulate like scooters”
Clockwork Orange
To the rhythm of broom strokes, the clicking of pliers and dodging poorly parked scooters: the agents confide. “8 times out of 10, when we just make a comment to someone who throws something right in front of us, we get insulted.” “It really depends on the sectors,” Olivier continues, “for me, towards Ropsy Chaudron, things are going rather well and we are receiving a good reception.” With a smile on their lips they tell us their anecdotes which sometimes send shivers down our spines: “one day I came face to face with a guy armed with a samurai sword.” Moussa has already been attacked and has already chased following iPhone thieves. “One time, a guy grabbed the broom from my cart. I run following him to snatch it out of his hands. I look at the handle: it was full of blood. I look to see if I’m injured then I notice that it’s the guy who was completely open in the stomach. He had just gotten into a fight with a guy with a knife.” Olivier has already found himself “in the middle of a 10-on-10 fight on rue Jorez. One guy even ended up right in my cart. I quickly moved away.”
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Apart from the leaves, the numerous canisters of nitrous oxide which have been invading the ground for two years and other cans and boxes, the team sometimes makes more… unexpected finds. “We have already found weapons. In a pile of leaves we feel something hard: we come across a small pistol, loaded with bullets and everything. It was raining that day, but the gun was dry. She had just been thrown there. We also found a sniper rifle once.” Olivier already had a bin of beers: “they were in fact molotov cocktails, all ready to use.”
The road family
“We are not afraid to come to work and as long as there are people who want clean streets we will be useful. It’s just that sometimes you have to come back down following events like that.” The Cureghem team has found its solution: the good atmosphere. “We come to work an hour early to have our coffee, meet up, have a nice room, just keep a good atmosphere. Even on days off sometimes to see colleagues. We spend more time here than with our family in the end, so we have recreated a family here. It gives courage. And when there is one who is not doing well, we stick together.”
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The fact remains that despite their daily work, Cureghem still suffers from this reputation as a dirty neighborhood. “Sometimes we go down a street, go ten meters forward, turn around and someone has just thrown something at our back. I’ve had bags thrown at me from a window before. Often, it doesn’t take more than 15 minutes for a place you just passed to to be disgusting.”
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Everyone has their own theory to improve the situation. The change in collection schedules by the region is often pointed out but the problems already existed before. “We had a container project at Place du Conseil. The Commune was ok but the region said no. In Cureghem, people do not have the means to keep their bins for too many days, nor to put 4 sorting bins in their homes. No matter how much we communicate, it doesn’t change. As long as people do not manage their waste as they should, it will remain dirty even if we continue to pass by every day.”
Facing “illegals”
Fridge, furniture, old TV, they find them daily. And the means do not always follow. Seven new trucks should arrive soon, management explains, “but 10 will no longer pass technical inspection. Sometimes we’ve been waiting for vehicles for two years. And for the illegal ones (clandestine deposits), we have two dedicated agents to remove them per sector.” The frequency of mini recyparks will, however, be doubled in 2024 and an agent monitors the hot spots of illegal deposits using 20 cameras throughout Anderlecht.
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The service was strengthened at the start of the mandate “but with many articles 60 (integration employment) over which we have no hierarchical ascendancy,” deplores Hubert, the team leader. And some are also annoyed by a lack of recognition. “They had to move me up a level, the decision was made in 2019 and still nothing. It’s going to hurt my retirement following everything we do here. It’s clearly not motivating. Even a simple medal for work… we don’t have them anymore.” Olivier, for his part, despite the difficulty of the job, intends to stay. “I like working outdoors, being in contact with people is stimulating. And this work keeps us very busy. Without it, I would be bored. Then when my kids see me in an orange suit, they have stars in their eyes and that’s beautiful.”
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To get an idea of the real Sisyphean work that these agents carry out, during the reinforcement of the service during the three months this summer for Cureghem, 582 tonnes were collected on the street “on 16 streets…” and apart from household waste in the classic bags.
For many, the repression should be more severe. 20 new agents were sworn in last week to be able to draw up administrative sanctions. Since the start of 2023, 454 municipal administrative sanctions have been issued in Anderlecht for cleanliness problems.
The municipality, for its part, has just launched a campaign to raise public awareness of the work carried out by the Cureghem agent tents and the 260 throughout the municipality. “We wanted to highlight it. Let everyone understand that the situation is not due to a lack of work,” concludes competent alderman Allan Neuzy (Ecolo). Their head of department nevertheless explains to us that at each meeting with the people of Anderlecht, “we hear: hats off to the men in orange.”
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