“Someone at the recycling park advised me to take my waste to a private place.”

After hauling trash around my apartment, I was surprised to find that I could fill an entire trailer with gravel and branches. What I gathered was actually someone else’s life – the one who occupied the building before me and enjoyed seeing his god-like plastic creation for years. But this reality was now about to disappear.

That is, if you find a place to get rid of all those memories. Because when I stood at the gate of the recycling park, no one showed up. Net Brussels employees went on strike that day. Where should I go next? I wouldn’t be coming home, because I had to return the trailer to the owner that same evening. Preferably empty.

One of the employees, who was not working, but was still walking around the park, approached me and advised me to go to the “Khas” – a garbage dump on the street. “But” — making a money gesture with your thumb and forefinger — “you have to pay.” He wanted to say: more than in Brussels Net.

Somehow I find this idea crazy: having to dock to dispose of my waste. What’s the alternative: to dump it somewhere illegally? And street trash, I can put it in the public trash, right? I know: yes, special treatment. But a city that wants to keep it clean should offer that option completely free, right? Or is this a populist idea (something the serpent would whisper in Eve’s ear)?

It turns out that the “private” is a huge warehouse with high walls separating the different types of waste. As I passed through the gate – a giant crater – I was reminded of Dante’s Inferno, and of the inscription: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

But that’s not true: the hope is that next year I can smell roses and lavender. This is worth more than fifty euros.