Sustainability in Copenhagen

Recently, I was very fortunate to attend a walking tour of several Copenhagen recycling centers. This event was sponsored by DIS and provided an amazing opportunity to explore more components of the city — and it helps that I’m interested in sustainability and how individual humans can make a difference in the greater urban scale!

We started our tour in Nordhavn, where we heard about the many types of materials accepted at the recycling center: whether scrap metal, glass, or fabrics, people drop off their (sorted) materials into the proper bins to be processed. I was impressed with the efficiency of the system, especially knowing that this is one of many similar facilities all across Copenhagen (in fact, you are never more than 2 km from a recycling center in the city itself).

There’s also a large reuse culture in Copenhagen that is exemplified by the centers: every center we toured had an area where items could be donated, swapped, or collected, entirely free of charge. This means that items that still have life left in them can find a new home, and people who may typically not have access to certain items can find them. These ranged from books and clothing to kitchenware and home decor.

The second stop of the tour took us to another recycling center in Østerbro, which partners with Østerbrohuset, a culture house in the region. Their exchange building is called The Watermelon after its bright green exterior and vibrant pink interior. They’ve recently also started up a system where locals can come and attend craft workshops taught by volunteers.

Then we hopped on the metro and rode to the third and final stop of the trip: the reuse center next to Kulturhuset Indre By. This was my favorite of the three (even though it had gotten quite cold and windy by then). We were told the square we were in is one of the few regions in the Copenhagen area that has actually voted to not paint over graffiti and street art, so the resulting color blast really stood out and created a fun environment to walk through.

This district also has the Copenhagen Tool Library, the first of its kind in Copenhagen. The tool library loans out tools to people in the city, from drills to shovels, in an effort to reduce consumption and waste of something you may only need once a year (or less!). In addition, the tool library also hosts workshops that cover basic carpentry and other technical skills, completely free of charge. They hope to reach a point where they are able to construct an entire house from start to finish using only donated materials and volunteer labor from the tool library workshops, which I think is a really cool way to both engage the local community and take action on key sustainable measures to address waste and housing.

My host family and I also recently took a trip to CopenHill, a combined waste-to-energy power plant that boasts a ski slope, hiking trail, and the world’s tallest artificial climbing wall. Not only was it a beautiful building aesthetically, it was also fascinating to hike up through what feels like a public park and end up on top of a massive structure hundreds of feet in the air (or about 85 meters above the ground, according to Google). The views were spectacular! Additionally, the premise of CopenHill itself is just impressive to me: it’s not just an energy plant that burns our own waste, but it’s also an attraction that people choose to go to for activities that are centered around being active and the environment. It’s a win-win-win for everyone!

Thrifting in Copenhagen is also an important part of the culture of re-use within the city. While there are many permanent shops throughout Copenhagen, there have also been many different weekend markets that provide a much less curated experience and a much wider range of clothes (at a much more affordable price, too!). In my two and a half months here in Denmark, I’ve gone to five different weekend markets (some of them twice) and ended up with a wonderful like-new windbreaker, a warm wool scarf, a bomber jacket, and an amazing rain layer.

If you’re keeping track, that means I’ve come home empty-handed a few times: that’s ok! The markets themselves are lively, fun, and very worth a trip with a friend or two, even if you don’t end up finding anything yourself.

These are just a few of the particularly notable sustainability-oriented things I’ve come across while in Copenhagen, but there are so many tiny actions that also speak to how conscious Denmark is about their impact on the world around them. It’s eye-opening to get some behind-the-scenes information on the recycling system (not even detailing the Pant system utilized across Denmark or the intentionality of urban planning to incentivize public transportation and biking over personal vehicle travel). I’m in awe at how smoothly everything seems to function, and maybe a little jealous we don’t have that in the States!