"If you are seen as an ugly city, you might as well be 'the ugliest'," he told The Sun.
Following the 2009 article, he created a website to advertise a tour called "Charleroi Adventure", and soon had hundreds of people signing up for the experience.
Initially, Buissart faced strong opposition from other tourist groups and local authorities.
"At first, the authorities blamed me for spreading the image of Charleroi as a depressing place," he said.
Over time, he won them over. Now, official tour guides have started offering their own visits to abandoned factories. Others have created maps of the ruins.
Buissart's tourist begin in the centre of the city but where they go from there, depends on the group, which can range from stag dos to school groups.
Members of the European Commission have even been guests on the "Charleroi Adventure".
After explaining the city's history, Buissart then walks people around (and sometimes into) the factories.
"I have keys to some of the abandoned buildings, so I show people around," he said.
"If the weather is good, we can climb a slag heap – which is the waste material produced from mining. Then there are bars that we can visit.
"For bigger groups, we can have a barbecue by the riverside."
The rise and fall of Charleroi
Shortly after Belgium gained its independence in 1830 the south region (which includes Charleroi), experienced a coal boom.
However, when oil outpaced coal as the primary form of fuel in the 1950s, Belgium's industrial focus moved north towards the North Sea coast, leaving Charleroi and other parts of the country to fall into disrepair.
No longer famous for coal, Charleroi has earned a reputation for it's high rates of crime and unemployment. Recent statistics show unemployment to sit around 20 per cent, compared to the national average of 6 per cent.
Naturally, the city is also where travellers can find "the ugliest road in Belgium," officially known as the Rue de Mons.
Writing about Charleroi, cultural anthropologist and war photographer Teun Voeten described harrowing scenes.
"Drug users openly shoot up heroin in vacant buildings, while prostitutes ply their trade under overpasses on street corners just a few streets from the town hall," Voeten wrote in the feature.
"Two of the five metro lines designed to serve the town have never been finished. Empty ghost stations now serve as stomping grounds for vandals, self-styled graffiti artists and junkies."
However, graffiti and unemployment are the least of the town's worries as it tries to distance itself from connections to Belgian serial killer and paedophile Marc Dutroux.
Arrested in 1996 for the kidnap, torture and abuse of six girls, Dutroux had lived in a house in Charleroi. Eventually, the residence was torn down and replaced by a public garden.
Local authorities have made efforts to clean up the city's run-down areas by transforming old buildings into museums and education centres and laying down cycle routes.
