Ernst Molenaars shows the sleeve of his coat, there are holes in it from fireworks that a few years ago were still smoldering on New Year’s Day. “I put the blower on it so the broom wagon could easily get over it, but that actually fueled the fire in that mountain of fired fireworks waste. Fortunately, Jimmie, my colleague, just pulled me aside, otherwise it would have been worse than just a few holes in my jacket.” Although he now has a new coat, he puts it back on every year on New Year’s Day: after all, you never know what’s still smoldering.
Molenaars and his colleagues gather early in the morning on New Year’s Day on the Grote Markt in Haarlem with broom wagons and wagons for loose waste. Today they start fifteen minutes later than on a normal New Year’s Day, because they expect there will be less waste due to the fireworks ban. They all have an extra fire extinguisher in the car just to be safe. Unlike last year, when the fireworks ban was much better observed, they think they will need it this year. “But it’s no comparison with other years,” foreman Ben El Majjouti assures me.
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For twenty years, El Majjouti has been cleaning the city, and when he has made a few rounds with the broom wagon he is stopped by two young girls: “Can we go in the broom wagon please? Just a few rounds?” El Majjouti laughs, no, that’s not possible today. People now know him in the city center and they often wave at him, he says.
El Majjouti skilfully maneuvers his car, and mainly sweeps up a lot of broken glassware and half-full beer bottles. It takes time to be able to do that, in addition to your regular driver’s license you need extra lessons. “My colleague recently thought he could drive under something: so it wasn’t. Fortunately, we are insured for it, but if you often drive off car mirrors, the question still arises: what are you doing?”
Eyewitnesses
Because he has been cleaning the city center almost daily for twenty years, El Majjouti has become an eyewitness to the changes in the center. “There is more greenery, which is nice of course, and there are fewer cars, which makes the streets easier to keep clean. The most striking thing is how much more catering has been added. Shops are disappearing and catering is taking its place,” El Majjouti concludes.
His colleague André Hoed agrees: “The vacancy of shops has increased enormously. This is even more noticeable due to the corona crisis and the lockdowns, but the disappearance of shops has been going on for some time. And all that cardboard, that is really the image of corona and especially of the lockdowns.” El Majjouti says that his four children only shop online. Both miss the fun in the city, and “also at work: the canteen is closed, staff outings are not allowed. It’s all about getting your things and getting started.”
The city lacks atmosphere and the amount of waste has increased due to corona. These are the traces of the corona crisis in the form of street waste. The people have become dirtier, because there is more eating out on the street now that the restaurants are closed and the amount of face masks on the floor is enormous. “That is extremely filthy,” says El Majjouti with a grin. His colleague Thamar de Jong agrees. “There is not just more waste. People are also more impatient. They now react angrier when you are busy, while I then think: I am here cleaning up your mess.” It is mainly young people, her team leader Spencer Bierman suspects: “A lot of waste is located along bicycle paths where it is full of mouth caps and cans of Red Bull.”
Shopping cart
Because the city center is indeed not that bad, they are going to help in a neighborhood slightly outside the center. It is extra work that will be added today, because it was quite intense there last night. “Actually, the residents are rewarded for their aso behaviour. They have destroyed so much that cleaning is done immediately the next morning, while in other neighborhoods it is later. Just let them look at their own mess for two days, they can see what they have done,” Bierman says, but they still get to work.
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Police escort was offered to scoop away the remnants of fireworks and remove the burnt-out shopping carts, but that is not necessary. “Then you only make things bigger,” says De Jong. While everything is still smoldering, the fire extinguishers in the broom wagons come in handy: while they are being sprayed on the fireworks waste, half-charred shopping carts are removed. New Year’s Eve in a nutshell: the street waste is the barometer of mood in the city.
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