By Madelyn Lipszyc

Copenhagen, Denmark is a city applauded for its investment in environmental waste disposal. Since the 1980s, the people of Copenhagen have been recycling close to 67% percent of their household, industrial and commercial waste. Less than a quarter is incinerated. Through this process, they convert the steam from the heat into energy and are also recycling residues from this process to fuel road construction. The city began its waste management overhaul endeavor because of cataclysmic landfill overflow and complaints about incinerator pollution. They are still reducing their rate of incineration dramatically.

According to the Denmark government website, they ask, What's Waste Worth to You? "The Danish approach to waste management is to optimize resource exploitation via a waste hierarchy which prioritizes recycling over energy recovery over landfill." Their biggest recycling category happens to be garden refuse which is composted! "Their incineration residues also give 20% of the city its heating needs." The heat from the incineration process which converts to energy is enough to power electricity for a whopping 80,000 homes and heating for 75,000 homes. This, at least, makes use of the small amount of garbage that they do produce. "The model has proved highly efficient, with the result that only 7% of all waste generated in Denmark is disposed of in landfills." Their program focuses on sustainability and the opportunities in garbage and what it can be used for. They also plan to cut their CO² emissions by 30% by 2020. And they want to become completely carbon neutral by 2025.

Carried from the 1980s is a tax imposed on Danish people who wish to dispose of waste. This encourages people to landfill less, recycle more and be more sustainable all around. The tax is applied to business and residential bags of garbage that are sent to a landfill.

New laws were introduced in the early 1990s to ensure that all recyclable materials were separated at homes and businesses before shipment to the plant. This, in turn, would reduce the time spent re-sorting and there would be a much lower chance for poor-recyclable matter to make recyclables less valuable for reuse. At the recycling plant, they also have the capabilities to handle toxic and electronic waste in a safe and effective way. These plants are very popular. Millions of people stop by each year free of charge, as long as they sort their waste.

Another interesting green fact about Denmark is that they are already switching to cleaner energy sources, away from coal towards wind, solar and geothermal. Over sixty percent of citizens bike or use public transit to commute. They plan to hugely invigorate and improve bike paths and encourage the people of the country to bike whenever possible.

Denmark hopes their clean energy initiatives will attract tourism and foreign investments. According to a report by the New York Times, they also began certifying restaurants and businesses to offer a climate-friendly menu that involves cutting down beef purchasing, and focusing on fresh organic and local produce.

While other communities may let excess wind power go to waste, Denmark has heavily invested in storing surplus energy from wind power into newly bought hydrogen and electric cars. They plan to have all new car purchases be hydrogen or battery-run by 2011. A lot of green energy is also implemented in government municipalities and services.

Denmark is a leader in renewable energy, and is a model example proving that it is easy and good for the economy to reduce carbon emissions, divert landfill waste through recycling, and make use of a valuable energy source from the garbage that is produced.