- For many people waste is a black box.
You have your garbage can, you go out in the morning
you throw something out there.
You don't really know what's happening,
there comes a garbage truck, something,
you know, it goes away and what else, right?
I think today in modern society, we're not so good
at looking at trash as a valuable resource.
It's always been a resource actually.
So what do you do with that?
- [Narrator] Let's face it, we have a trash problem.
Humans throw away 3.5 million tons
of waste every single day.
By the end of the century, that number will triple.
And making matters worse countries like China
have stopped collecting the world's trash.
So what now?
Well imagine a city where there's no waste problem,
there's virtually no landfill, no dump,
no overflowing trash cans,
it's the reality for one city in Denmark.
Here in Copenhagen they've figure out
an innovative solution to waste management.
They're turning piles of trash into this ski slope.
And to get it there, they're using this sensor.
(laughs)
All right, here's the trash talk.
(quietly) It's pretty funny.
(light, energetic music)
- [Interviewer] If you guys have a sensor?
- Yeah!
- [Interviewer] You can just show us really quick.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Come with me.
(energetic music)
- All right, this is basically what it looks like.
- [Narrator] To solve the trash problem,
it first has to be collected.
For cities all over the world,
sights like these are not uncommon.
Trash just literally piling up on the street.
But in Copenhagen, it's more like this.
And that's thanks to these guys.
- [Narrator] They use that 3D image to determine
how full each trashcan is around the city.
From there they use a data platform
to optimize collection rounds
to only pick up bins that are full.
- [Narrator] It's a simple solution that started
here in Copenhagen.
But it's catching on in the rest of the world.
Like other parts of Europe, Israel and San Francisco.
Nordsense has helped cities cut their
waste management budget in half.
And not only that, sidewalks stay clean
and there are less trucks on the road.
But the challenge doesn't end there,
there garbage still needs to go somewhere.
Copenhagen has actually found a way
to turn every piece of trash into something
to help the city.
(garbage bin lid closes)
(light music)
- So what we do here in Denmark,
is to use the residual waste as fuel
on par with coal or oil or whatever
you otherwise would burn.
So we'll take the waste that is not recycled
from the city and we burn it
so we get electricity and we get central heating.
- [Narrator] So this is where Copenhagen's trash goes
300 truck loads of waste arrive here every day
to this plant just 10 minutes from downtown.
They burn that trash to create high pressure steam
which drives the turbines to create heat and electricity.
The plant is so successful they even import trash
from other countries to keep up with energy production.
In fact they burn 400 000 tons of garbage per year.
And while that has a carbon footprint,
instead of sending trash to landfills,
it's transformed into electricity for 60,000 homes
and heat for 100,000 more.
- The Copenhagen power plant is kind of special.
It's one of the world's most cleanest
and eco-friendly waste incineration plants.
- Normally this kind of plant would be far
away from the city center.
- [Narrator] I've never been to a power plant.
- And you're not welcome
because it is pressure and heat and so on
so we have to make sure that this is the safest waste
to energy plant in the whole world.
And it is, by far, because we've made some modifications
to the plant.
We've broken new ground, made new standards
to make it possible that the waste to energy plant
can be in the center of a capital city.
- [Narrator] It's so safe they've turned the roof
of this power plant into a massive public space.
- It's extremely difficult, I can tell,
to create artificial ski slope
and a green roof park on a slope like this.
- [Narrator] This is now Copenhagen's only ski slope
and it can be used year round no matter the weather.
There is also a rooftop cafe, a climbing wall
and hiking trails.
- So this climbing wall will be
the world's tallest climbing wall.
It's so tall you can do multi-pitch climbing
for the first time in Denmark
which is pretty fricking cool
and interest have been so massive.
We had people running over the fence
every night to trying to get up (mumbles).
We have media from all over the world
and like a whole skiing community are there
sort of waiting eagerly to come out here.
Here you get the fantastic opportunity
to learn about what is going on on the
other side of your garbage can, right?
And at the same time hopefully, you will have
a fantastic experience on this marvelous roof park.
(light music)
- Obviously, we need to find ways of living and working
that does not destroy the planet we have.
It's very nice to hear people wanting to colonize Mars
and build space stations on the moon
but I think we should start with taking care
of what we have here.
- I think, you know,
sustainability is the key to everything.
I have children, maybe you do to.
I want to give them the chance of enjoying
living in a clean world with prospects for the future.
I see that as a part of my job.
And what I really wanna do.
And I think, you know, it starts with us.
- Hey guys, thanks for watching!
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