Hej everyone! I have now been in Copenhagen for about a week and a half and have been loving it so far. I have definitely been impressed with some aspects of sustainability, but it is not the perfectly sustainable place I had hoped it to be. I think what Copenhagen does best is incorporating so many aspects of sustainability. In America, I find that most people focus on simply recycling or turning off the lights when one leaves the room, but Copenhagen expands aspects of sustainability into their food and transportation sectors as well. All cafes I’ve seen here have mugs and cups for dining in and most restaurants use real plates and silverware. I have been bringing around with me my collapsible cup and bamboo silverware, but have barely needed to use them because cups for water here have all been glass and I have not even seen plastic silverware. One time when a restaurant was handing out samples on the street, the samples were in paper cups and came with bamboo utensils.
Copenhagen has amazing anti food waste programs such as WeFood and TooGoodToGo. WeFood is a grocery store where all of the food is surplus (cannot be sold at regular supermarkets because of overdue “best before” dates, incorrect labels, or damaged packaging). TooGoodToGo is an app where restaurants and grocery stores can sell leftover food at a reduced price and the customer goes and picks up a bag of the extra food from the day at the restaurant or grocery store. TooGoodToGo says that so far it has saved 73,884 tonnes of CO2 from saving 29,553,667 meals from going to waste Also, Netto, a grocery store that seems to be on just about every block here, has a program where a few hours before closing, the fresh baked goods from the store are half off. I have been really impressed with the efforts in Copenhagen to combat food waste, a problem I really do not see being addressed in the U.S.
One thing that I have noticed that Copenhagen does very poorly is plastic waste in grocery stores. While in U.S. I find produce to be wrapped in plastic some of the time, it seems in Copenhagen all of the produce is packaged in plastic. I bought six tomatoes and it came in a plastic tray with a plastic wrapper. The plastic here does feel thinner, which I assume is trying to reduce the amount of plastic needed, but the thinner plastic makes it harder to reuse. Still, I found a zero-waste, packaging-free grocery store called LOS market that I am planning to go to next time I buy groceries.
Sustainability in Copenhagen: Living in the Built Environment 