Zoersel becomes Belgium’s first Zero Waste Candidate City

Cities & Communities Fair Resource Foundation

Today, we shine a light on the town of Zoersel, set to become Belgium’s first municipality to make its commitment to become a Zero Waste Certified City within the next 3 years.

Located in Flanders, near Antwerp, Zoersel has already achieved an impressive 81 kg of residual waste per person—well below the Flemish average of 128 kg. When ranking municipalities based on the estimated residual waste figure for 2022, Zoersel is in the top 5 of municipalities with the lowest figure. Now, Zoersel is committed to going even further. The town has embarked on the Zero Waste Cities Certification journey, which equips municipalities with the tools, guidance, and support needed to significantly cut residual waste and lead the way in sustainable waste management.
The example of Zoersel is a great showcase of how even a well-performing municipality can continue to seek improvements and not feel content – a key philosophy binding all our Zero Waste Cities. In recent years, it has introduced a pioneering new pay-as-you-throw scheme with RFID chips on household bins, which has helped result in residual waste generation per capita drop from 101 to 81kg from 2020 to 2022. Zoersel will now following a mentoring phase with the Fair Resource Foundation, working towards the following ambitious goals:

Reducing residual waste to a maximum of 70 kg per person in the mid-term
Ensuring that no more than 10% of the waste ends up in incineration or landfill with 90% being recyclable or compostable

Mayor Liesbeth Verstreken highlights the importance of community involvement in achieving these goals: “This is a collective effort. We need our residents to be part of the solution, actively participating in decisions that impact our shared environment. We’ve long applied the ‘polluter pays’ principle to promote accountability, but now we want to go further by providing tangible alternatives to help our residents reduce their waste.”

Meanwhile, cities across Belgium are also making significant strides toward zero waste. Brussels, for example, having previously committed to the Zero Waste Cities programme, is now an active member of the Elevating Reuse In Cities (ERIC) project, where a coalition of European cities is developing innovative plastic prevention strategies. Together with the commune of Jette, they’re focusing on transitioning to reusable cups and plates in all public events, whilst in Jette they have also a ban on all single used items inside the municipality. You can read more about these efforts and the broader commitments of European cities in the Zero Waste Cities report.

ZWE congratulates Zoersel on becoming Belgium’s first Zero Waste Candidate City. It sets a powerful example for other municipalities in the country and across Europe, proving that with vision, perseverance, and community collaboration, meaningful strides towards zero waste can be taken in a wide range of contexts across Europe.