Copenhagen sets its sights on Christmas waste

Pollution skyrockets over the holidays and local authorities in Copenhagen want to prevent that from happening

Gift-giving lies at the very heart of any Christmas celebration, yet with gifts also comes waste, and according to a study done by the City of Copenhagen, a large part of the waste generated by its citizens during the winter holidays remains unsorted and poorly managed.

In order to drive up and improve the numbers registered by authorities, the municipality has launched a massive information campaign that aims to make locals more aware of their actions and to inform them of how better to protect the environment during the Christmas period.

Never forget about the environment

Although more than 80% of Copenhageners are in favour of waste sorting, almost 1/3 of the city's citizens state that they do not sort biowaste. Even though more than 370,000 green kitchen baskets have been distributed for that purpose since 2017. In 2019 alone, almost 35% of Copenhageners' recyclable biowaste from that period ended up in the residual waste containers – around 38,000 tons of biowaste in total.

“Christmas is a wonderful holiday, but it is also enormously heavy for consumption, and it strains the climate. If we all sort our waste, the materials will be recycled and we will reduce CO2 emissions. In this way, we can help each other achieve the goal for Copenhagen to be CO2-neutral by 2025,” says technical and environmental mayor Ninna Hedeager Olsen (EL).

In an attempt to get even more people to sort waste correctly over Christmas and New Year, the City of Copenhagen will in the coming weeks turn up guidance on how to sort your waste and how to get started with a possible New Year's resolution to sort more.

On the municipality's social media, videos, pictures and quizzes must strengthen Copenhageners' awareness of correct waste sorting. The efforts are especially aimed at the 18-34-year-olds – a group with an attitude of wanting to sort, which, however, rarely does so in the end.