BRUSSELS — Two years after Belgium banned recreational use of nitrous oxide, the gas remains one of the country's most visible drugs, its brightly branded canisters littering parks, nightclub entrances and residential streets even as the substance has become entangled with organized crime networks and a costly waste-management crisis.

Near Brussels-North railway station, discarded nitrous oxide cylinders, black canisters marketed with flashy branding, lie scattered beneath rubbish bins, a sight so common that refuse collectors barely react to it anymore. The canisters have become a persistent feature of the urban landscape, abandoned in parks, piled beside roads and dumped in residential streets across the capital.

Beyond the litter, the canisters pose a direct financial threat to waste infrastructure. When crushed during processing, the pressurized cylinders can explode violently, damaging machinery and forcing incinerators to shut down. "Each explosion costs around a quarter of a million euros," said Nathalie Debast of the Flemish Association of Cities and Municipalities. The organization estimated the total damage bill reached 12 million euros in 2025 alone.

Deborah Apelmaen, commissioner of the Brussels-Midi police zone, has watched the drug's popularity spread steadily through the capital's nightlife over recent years. "Nitrous oxide has been popular for several years as a cheap party drug," Apelmaen said. "You see it in nightclubs, at festivals, at raves. Anyone arriving with cylinders immediately becomes popular." The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the trend, according to the report, as young people gathered in parks, warehouses and private parties while bars and clubs remained closed, an environment well suited to a drug that is cheap, portable and easy to share.

Unlike many other illicit substances, nitrous oxide has been marketed with the aesthetics of celebration rather than danger, packaged in bright colors with sweet flavors and playful branding, and promoted........

© International Business Times