The end of the rubbish bag
It is by now a familiar sight in Maastricht: rubbish bags lying in the streets. Especially since 2022, when the municipality decided to no longer collect the famous red and white residual waste bags on a weekly basis but once every two weeks. Especially residents of student rooms and high-rise buildings, who often do not have a garden or balcony to store full bags, have been complaining about smells and pests in their homes ever since. Meanwhile, to the frustration of many city inhabitants, dumping or 'accidentally' putting the bags on the street too early is commonplace, while at the same time there is also a lot of dissatisfaction about the stricter controls with accompanying fines.
In short: a big mess. Neighbourhood meetings and surveys show that many residents want to return to the system of once-a-week collection. But that is not going to happen, it turned out last week. The Liberal Party motion proposing this did not make it through the city council.
That does not mean that nothing will change: a majority did approve a new waste policy starting in 2025. This will see the disappearance of the residual waste bag and the introduction of underground waste containers in as many places in the city as possible, where residents can bring their residual waste themselves at any time. Plastic, tins and drinks cartons (PMD) will be collected outside the city centre. How often? Once every two weeks.
People in Amsterdam don’t want meat
It’s bean burgers galore this week. As it is the Week without Meat and Dairy, vegetarian and vegan diets are being promoted all over the country. ‘Maastricht goes vegan’, for example, organised a dinner in the InnBetween last Saturday and UM caterer Eurest is sharing facts about plant-based food via Instagram.
The catering company at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) decided to place the meat sandwiches in a less obvious spot, university newspaper Folia reports. Students can also win tickets for amusement parks Walibi or the Efteling if they buy products from the Vegetarische Slager (Vegetarian Butcher). As it is, not many people in Amsterdam still have to be tempted to not eat meat. According to local caterer Cirfood, almost three quarters of the customers in the UvA canteen chose the vegetarian (more than 40 per cent) or even the vegan option (25 per cent). It is not clear whether this concerns the entire selection of products (so including items like coffee and fruit, which are vegetarian by nature) or just the sandwiches and hot meals.
At Wageningen University and Research (WUR), the Plant-Based Universities Wageningen organisation are less positive. In a letter to the editor in university newspaper Resource, they classified WUR’s participation in the Week without Meat and Dairy as ‘greenwashing’. “The canteens appear to have no qualms about selling meat and dairy this week,” they complain. Also: it should be easier to eat healthy and sustainable food “all year round”.
Investigate the UM
Students do not bother about what is going on in Maastricht, do not speak the language, make noise, and their presence alone puts pressure on the local housing market… the complaints are not new. On the other hand, university managers who emphasise what a blessing UM is for the Limburg capital, are not new either. What is new, is a former president of the Executive Board who, albeit carefully, says that the truth lies most likely somewhere in the middle. “Maybe,” said Karl Dittrich (president from 1994 to 2002) last Friday, “we as a university placed the problems firmly elsewhere.” With the local authorities, who ultimately had to see what could be done about the unease in the city. “Back in the nineteen-nineties, we were in survival mode,” he adds, by way of an excuse, but anyway.
Dittrich said this at the presentation of Licht op Maastricht (previously Jaarboek Maastricht), in which the student life of 2023 has been given its place too. In the run-up to the fiftieth anniversary of UM (in 2026), he would like to see, as would yearbook senior editor Eric Wetzels, an investigation into all the effects of the university on the city. He received applause for his idea from those present at Dominicanen bookstore.