These last couple of weeks have been giving me an inside look on the step-by-step process of how to get trashed. And to my surprise, it barely involves any alcohol! Seems like I've been doing it all wrong all this time.
For my Waste Management Systems in Europe class we took a field trip to the incinerator! Yeah, to you that sounds like quite the worst way to spend a whole morning (newsflash: it smells). But to me, this topic is quite interesting. It's more than just going to go see the trash burn: it's about raising questions about what is trash? why and how it got here? how come this multi-million dollar process of handling and treatment gets away from the neglected actions of the consumer who discards an item and the producer who makes items meant to be waste? And why do government choose this method of management? When it comes to trash, we have nurtured a culture of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ But, the problem with trash is very much visible and is very much affecting the lives of many people around the world. Coming from a developing country myself and reflecting on the Western lifestyle I now have come to enjoy, I can say that trash is much more than residue and left overs. It is a political, social, and even an economic entity. Many take for granted the fact that their garbage “magically” disappears... but the disappearance is only an act. Instead it is simply relocated to a landfill, a recycling center, an incinerator like the one in the pictures, perhaps, like it does in many parts of the world, makes its way down a storm drain and into a nearby ocean, or is dumped directly onto it. In the end, a city without a proper waste management strategy does not only suffer serious environmental hazards, but negatively impacts its social, cultural and political activity. Since I am interested in aspects of how sustainable development can be a viable strategy for community design and architecture, the question of waste management is a very relevant one for me.
We visited the Amager Resource Center where most of the trash from the Copenhagen municipality gets sent to be burned for energy that produces district heating and electricity. It turns out that the Danes don't only like to light candles to improve the atmosphere, or fire up their sex lives with some unrestricted passion (I would know ;)), they also like to bring in the fire when it comes to trash. Denmark is a leader in incineration of waste. We got an inside look at the plant and a tour of their facilities. Sometimes it was like walking through the set of a scary movie, others its like stepping into a post-apocalyptic camp, other it was like perhaps settlements on space must look like, and yet others it was a fascinating look at home machinery moves and how garbage gets treated. You would never think that what ever you toss in the bin goes into well planned, big, and efficient treatment plants. Check out the shots I got and the ridiculous helmet I got them with:
For my Waste Management Systems in Europe class we took a field trip to the incinerator! Yeah, to you that sounds like quite the worst way to spend a whole morning (newsflash: it smells). But to me, this topic is quite interesting. It's more than just going to go see the trash burn: it's about raising questions about what is trash? why and how it got here? how come this multi-million dollar process of handling and treatment gets away from the neglected actions of the consumer who discards an item and the producer who makes items meant to be waste? And why do government choose this method of management? When it comes to trash, we have nurtured a culture of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ But, the problem with trash is very much visible and is very much affecting the lives of many people around the world. Coming from a developing country myself and reflecting on the Western lifestyle I now have come to enjoy, I can say that trash is much more than residue and left overs. It is a political, social, and even an economic entity. Many take for granted the fact that their garbage “magically” disappears... but the disappearance is only an act. Instead it is simply relocated to a landfill, a recycling center, an incinerator like the one in the pictures, perhaps, like it does in many parts of the world, makes its way down a storm drain and into a nearby ocean, or is dumped directly onto it. In the end, a city without a proper waste management strategy does not only suffer serious environmental hazards, but negatively impacts its social, cultural and political activity. Since I am interested in aspects of how sustainable development can be a viable strategy for community design and architecture, the question of waste management is a very relevant one for me.
We visited the Amager Resource Center where most of the trash from the Copenhagen municipality gets sent to be burned for energy that produces district heating and electricity. It turns out that the Danes don't only like to light candles to improve the atmosphere, or fire up their sex lives with some unrestricted passion (I would know ;)), they also like to bring in the fire when it comes to trash. Denmark is a leader in incineration of waste. We got an inside look at the plant and a tour of their facilities. Sometimes it was like walking through the set of a scary movie, others its like stepping into a post-apocalyptic camp, other it was like perhaps settlements on space must look like, and yet others it was a fascinating look at home machinery moves and how garbage gets treated. You would never think that what ever you toss in the bin goes into well planned, big, and efficient treatment plants. Check out the shots I got and the ridiculous helmet I got them with:
Of course, it is also important to be critical about environmental policy in the current context. The story of how Denmark has become on of the world's greenest countries is also sometimes misleading when it is actually one of the EU countries that generate more waste per capita and is world leader in incineration of household waste (burns about 80% of it as we learned). In some senses, to keep the incinerator running more waste is good, less waste is bad. That is quite a contradiction that I can't seem to wrap my head around. The story also comes in parallel with EU waste policy and the overall societal values of waste in our current system. The move toward waste-to-energy plants was kick-started in 1999, with a European Union directive requiring member states to greatly reduce the amount of garbage going to landfills. As the EU law dictates that as from 2020 all new buildings will need to be carbon neutral radically reducing the need for energy input, then how will Denmark cross the obstacle of becoming a carbon neutral country when 20% of heat production and 5% of electricity is generated from waste incineration, heat and power that could be replaced with a combination of geothermal, wind and biogas? That's a big questions to ponder.
In the end, this management of waste by burning is definitely more effective than landfilling which is generally as much as 25 times worse than incineration. Also, as we saw on the tour, the center has been working with research that includes better technologies for managing waste and the single-stream processes. What's more, they are even planning on building a whole new plant that promises to be an architectural jewel featuring a skiing slope, a man-made mountain and other sporty amenities. Check it here:
In the end, this management of waste by burning is definitely more effective than landfilling which is generally as much as 25 times worse than incineration. Also, as we saw on the tour, the center has been working with research that includes better technologies for managing waste and the single-stream processes. What's more, they are even planning on building a whole new plant that promises to be an architectural jewel featuring a skiing slope, a man-made mountain and other sporty amenities. Check it here: