General waste (restafval)
Because Maastricht aims to become waste free by 2030, the municipality wants to reduce the need for residual waste. After you have separated your PBD, glass, paper/cardboard and organic waste, the rest of the trash can go in the red and white bin bags, which you can buy from Jumbo or Albert Heijn. These bags are rather expensive so in order to save money, try to use as few of them as possible. You can buy two sizes of these bags so choose which one is better for your household. Ideally, you would use them for non recyclable waste like full vacuum cleaner bags, chewing gum, cigarette butts, ash, sanitary napkins and combined-material packaging.
Exceptions to the items that can go in the red and white bags are batteries, lightbulbs and electronic devices. For these, there are drop-off points at supermarkets, or within the stores where the electronics were bought. Check the Milieu App to make sure that what you’re putting in these bags actually belongs there! If you recycle properly there shouldn’t be too much left to put in these bags.
General waste collection days
The municipality collects these bags once every two weeks. You can check the Milieu App or the waste calendar to find out which day this is for your address. You can leave your red and white bags out on the sidewalk between 19:00h on the evening before the collection day, or before 06:00h on the morning of the collection day.
There is one exception to this rule: if the waste calendar indicates that Tuesday is the pick-up day for your garbage, then you should put the waste on the street on Tuesday evening between 17:00h and 19:00h, because it will be collected on the same night.
Please stick to the date and time during which you should be putting your trash out, as leaving it out any earlier will mean the bags are left on the street for longer than they should be. This looks and smells bad, and also attracts vermin.
waste fines
It’s not unheard of that people receive large fines for throwing out recyclable items in the red and white bags, instead of taking them to the recycling stations. The people who collect the trash as well as the ”handhaving” (law enforcement team) can look inside the red bags to make sure there are no recyclable materials inside; if they do find any, they can locate the culpable person and fine them. The same goes for leaving your trash out too early.
