Sustainable Denmark
Copenhagen – 19th May
As we leave Denmark tomorrow to head to Sweden, there is one learning that I will take away from our stay in Denmark and that is that New Zealand still has a long way to go to be considered a clean green country.
We had only one visit planned today and that was to go to a ski field – yes, this flat country does have one, and it is in Copenhagen city.
Copenhill Ski Field is on top of the Amager Vaerket power station, which is a combined heat and power waste-to-energy plant. It is owned by Hofor who supply 1.1 million people in Copenhagen with drinking water, disposal of waste water, heating, cooling and gas. The only down-side is that the ski field is next door to where the city’s rubbish trucks park and the refuse station which supplies the whole organisation with waste to turn into energy. [Ed – everything is parked up for a national holiday today and it was a little whiffy…]
More about the tourist attraction side, you can take the stairs or an elevator up to the top of the 124 metre high building and ski or walk down. Walking is free, so is the elevator. For the more adventurous you can rock climb up the tallest part. Locals use it as an exercise ground and run up and down the stairs, crazy. There are amazing 360 degree views of Copenhagen, even a view of the water ski pond which has electric rope tows, no motor boat required.
The ski slope is plastic matting with grass growing through it. The slope starts at the café, pretty close to the top and goes down around three sides of the building.
There were people skiing today, using travelators to get to the top. It is hard to get a good picture of the whole field so we borrowed an image.
I could spend all day writing about Danish initiatives in regards to reducing emissions, recycling and getting people out of their cars onto bikes or public transport. NZ could learn a few things, especially the parcel pick-up system. In NZ you either have to rely on the courier system or go to the Post Office or Countdown in their opening hours and provide proof of ID and some identification that you have been sent a parcel. In Denmark, you order online and via an App they send you a code, when your parcel has been put in one the red boxes as shown in the photo, they advise you by TXT and you go and collect it. At the boxes you put in the code and one of the many red doors opens with your parcel in it. No need to wait until the shop opens and no need to provide ID and evidence. Notice the boxes aren’t vandalised with graffiti, the country is clean, graffiti is restricted to Freetown.
Today’s ABBA tribute is ‘He is your brother’ (1972), for the poor who help keep Denmark clean. Around town they have lots of recycling bins and in the central city they have the controversial bins as shown in the photo. People are objecting that they are too big and they don’t have the tray for placing cans and plastic bottles for the poor to take to the supermarket recycling machines for a food voucher. We noticed the poor in central Copenhagen opening the bins and taking out the cans. I took a photo of a person looking for cans in a bin, it’s a sad sight but at the end of the day he gets a feed and Denmark reduces the waste going to landfill.
I happened to meet a begging man in the street
Treat him well, he is your brother, brother
You might need his help one day, he’s your brother
We depend on one another, brother
Jante’s Law in Scandinavian society is ‘the belief that no one is better than anyone else’