Opwijk, Flemish Brabant, Belgium

What was done

The municipality of Opwijk (Flemish Brabant, Belgium), via the local INZET initiative, ran a small free-hen distribution to cut household organic waste. In 2018, 30 households each received two free hens, reserved at a stand during the municipality's garden market in May.

This is a deliberately simple, small-scale version of the model — a single municipality, one distribution point, a few dozen households — useful as a low-overhead template.

Eligibility and conditions

To take part, a household had to: live in Opwijk; not already keep hens; have a sufficiently large garden (2–5 m² of outdoor space per hen); commit to caring properly for the two hens; and keep them for at least one year.

Reported figures

• 30 households served, 60 hens distributed (2018).
• The organiser stated each household would divert about 100 kg of waste per year — together roughly 3 tonnes across the 30 households.
• Hens also provide eggs, cited as the participation incentive.

What a replicating municipality should know

• The model scales down cleanly. A single municipality can run a meaningful version with a few dozen households and one distribution event — no agglomeration-scale machinery required.
• Piggyback on an existing event. Opwijk used its annual garden market as the reservation and distribution venue, avoiding a standalone logistics exercise.
• Per-hen space rules can be explicit. Opwijk specified 2–5 m² per hen, a concrete and checkable criterion.
• The "no existing hens" rule targets the diversion. Restricting to households that don't already keep hens directs the subsidy at genuinely new diversion rather than rewarding existing keepers.
• The ~100 kg/household/year figure is an organiser estimate, consistent with conservative figures elsewhere but not independently measured for this scheme.