Waste processing
The Ghent waste manager Ivago is starting a pilot project: anyone who hands in a bottle of laughing gas at a recycling park will receive five euros. “Because if they end up in our incinerators, they can lead to dangerous and expensive explosions.”
Nitrous oxide has been used for a long time in the medical world and in the catering industry, but increasingly as a drug. Young people in particular fill balloons with it and then inhale the gas. This is not without danger, because it can lead to oxygen deficiency. But the bottles in which the laughing gas is packaged also cause major problems.
“Too often they end up on the public domain or in public garbage bins,” says Ghent councilor for Cleanliness Bram Van Braeckevelt (Green). “They then end up in the waste-to-energy plant. If there is any residual gas in them, they can explode. This quickly causes tens of thousands of euros in damage to the incinerator and a long downtime. Moreover, the explosion is dangerous for the employees: such a bottle is very heavy.”
These types of explosions are becoming more and more common: in 2023 there were even about a hundred incidents. Reason enough for Ivago to start a campaign. Anyone who sees a nitrous oxide bottle is asked to bring it into the recycling park. In exchange, you will receive five euros on your Ivago account, which you can then use for visits to the recycling park or for home collection.
Pilot project
This is a pilot project, says Van Braeckevelt, which will provisionally run until September. “Of course this costs us something, but still much less than the damage such a bottle can cause.” To be clear: the extra ‘deposit’ only applies to the large bottles, not to the small metal ampules that cyclists sometimes use to inflate their tires, for example. These can simply be disposed of at the PMD, while the large bottles must be disposed of as small hazardous waste.
In September, Ivago started carrying out additional checks on illegal dumping collections. The staff collects the cylinders separately, after which a specialized collector comes to collect them.
