I’ve learnt that sometimes the infinitive of verbs can be used as a noun in Dutch. And in this case it behaves like a neuter one, so we use “het” as its article.

Examples (taken from here):

Het eten van varkensvlees is verboden. – Eating pork is not allowed.
Het drinken van alcohol is toegestaan. – Drinking alcohol is allowed.

The verbs can also behave like adjectives, but I am too sleepy already to write about it at the moment. The details can be found here: http://www.heardutchhere.net/duverbs.html#NounsAdjectives