Rosental residents decry illegal rubbish as Basel rejects neglect claims

Residents of Basel’s Rosental neighborhood say rubbish is left for weeks and the authorities are not doing enough to clear it, SRF reports. The city rejects claims that it is neglecting the neighborhood.

In a letter to SRF signed by 10 residents, they describe the rubbish as a “shameful state” and a failure by the authorities. Resident Monica Aponte says the situation has worsened over the past two years. During an SRF walk through the neighborhood, she pointed to discarded furniture, including a damaged child’s bed and a dirty carpet, as well as rubbish bags torn open by crows.

Aponte said residents should distinguish between items left for others to take and rubbish that needs to be disposed of. She and other residents say people who dump waste illegally are responsible for the problem, but want the authorities to clear it and penalise those responsible. One resident said a report to the authorities had led to a cleanup, but the rubbish soon returned.

Daniel Hofer, a spokesperson for Basel’s Department of Construction and Transport, rejected the criticism. He said the city cleans the neighborhood every weekday, as it does elsewhere, and that officials inspect the area and issue fines. Automated camera-based monitoring, he said, shows Rosental is about as clean as the old town. The city receives more reports of rubbish from Rosental, but other neighborhoods have more illegal dumps, he added.

Timo Weber, who leads the waste and raw materials division at the cantonal Office for the Environment and Energy, said Basel now has more waste than a decade ago, as well as more staff to deal with it. Officials follow up on reports and are in Rosental almost daily. They aim to investigate reports of illegally dumped rubbish every day, though those responsible are sometimes difficult to identify.

Basel issues about 1,500 waste-related fines a year, a figure the authorities say is stable at a high level. Since August, national littering rules have replaced cantonal regulations, with fines of 80 to 250 francs. Cutting open rubbish bags during investigations now leads to a criminal complaint. The city’s cleaning service handles public spaces, while rubbish on private property is not its responsibility.