Circular Consumer Economy: What we can learn from the Danes
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After spending two weeks in Denmark, Jacquelyn Ottman shares some of Denmark's Green Solutions focusing on reducing waste by recycling and reusing. Learn more at WeHateToWaste.com and what we can do for you and your business.
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Circular Consumer Economy: What we can learn from the Danes
- 1. What We Can Learn from the Danes in Creating a More Circular Consumer Economy
- 2. Hej! • I’m Jacquie Ottman • M SWAB Secretary • Chair, Residential Recycling & Reuse Center • Green Marketing Maven • We Hate To Waste Founder
- 5. Meet The Danes • 5 million people (& bikes) • No resources • No more fish, 25 million pigs • Very creative/ resourceful, quirky • Very socially conscious (sharing) • Very design-y • Very green • HAPPY, HAPPY
- 10. Will we continue to rely on incineration? The Ski Slope, Copenhagen
- 11. Let’s recycle the pig waste! Biowaste facility, Bornholm
- 12. Let’s recycle the water! (with algae) Green Solutions House, Bornholm
- 18. How might we re-create a culture of minimal packaging?
- 19. In what ways might we make it convenient to reuse packaging? Reusable Cup Refund Point, Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen
- 21. How might we make it LUXURIOUS to buy secondhand?
- 22. Can we make it FREE to reuse stuff? Reuse Center, Aarhus
- 25. Can we make giving away stuff attractive?
- 26. Can we make sorting beautiful?
- 27. Can we make trash patriotic?
- 28. ….Something we do for each other?
- 29. How about just plain Fun?
- 30. What other ways can we all have Fun?
- 31. Vi ses, jeg smutter!
Editor's Notes
- Thanks for the invitation. I have to say this preso was bumped at Manhattan SWAB next week by your very own Kendall who’s going to be making a presentation on china’s recycling policy … so I’m very happy that you guys invited me tonight… to even the score a little bit! So the name of my preso is What we can learn from the Danes in creating a more circular consumer economy. I’ll assume that most of you know what a Circular Economy is and if you don’t I’ll explain in a moment. It’s a pretty big idea in Europe right now. But first I’ll introduce myself and let you know how I’ve come to talk about this tonite. SLIDE
- I’m Jacquie Ottman, the secretary of the Manhattan SWAB, and the Chair of the Residential Recycling and Reuse Committee. And in my spare time, I’m an expert in Green marketing, and the founder of a website that I hope a lot of you know by now, WeHateToWaste. Find a new consumer c8lturethat’s much more resource efficient. So, here I am waving Hej – in Sweden in mid August. I spent 4 days there as part of an amazing trip I was able to take in Scandinavia in August, prompted by an invitation I received from the Danish government. SLIDE
- In July I was contacted by a group called State of Green. They are a governmental organization that promotes economic development in Denmark. The European Union is thinking ahead to 2050 – and encouraging its members to move towards a Circular Economy. Denmark thinks this is a great idea because they’ve been practicing Circular Economy principles for centuries. So now they are leading groups of representatives from the U.S., China and Germany – their big 3 export markets to come take a look. SLIDE
- So here are the 9 of us from New York one afternoon with our two guides from Denmark, -- one of which works here in what they call the Urban Future Hub at the Metro Tech. The tour was 4 days. But I spent two and half weeks there. So, let me spend a few minutes letting you know I learned specifically related to creating a more circular consumer economy. ..SLIDE
- So, at the big risk of generalizing… here’s what I learned about the Danes in a nutshell: 5 million people – and as many bikes. NO resources – no coal, oil, gas, hydro. They have a lot of coastline and a bunch of wind. But frankly, they don’t have as much wind as you might think. Sadly, the Balkan Sea is fished out, but they do have 25 million pigs. So I think I wound up eating a lot more pork than fish which was a little bit of a surprise. Because they don’t have a lot of resources, I think they have evolved into a very creative and resourceful people. They are a bit quirky too – maybe because they have spent so much time trying to think outside the box about how to stretch those resources. As you probably know, they have a very advanced social democracy – they pay high taxes, get health care, and all that. So they have a very strong social conscious – and I was pretty intrigued to learn more about their sharing economy initiatives. They believe strongly in the power of design – something they learned from the Japanese – so it’s very minimalist -- a good way to stretch those resources! And being largely agricultural economy, and very health and wellness oriented , they are very GREEN. I saw organic and green products all over Copenhagen. And you put it all together – and you get what economists have tried to quantify as the Happiest people in the world. And indeed, I saw it in evidence… SLIDE
- You walk down the street and people are trying to give you free hugs!
- You can even take a little break right in the middle of Copenhagen and jump on a trampoline! SLIDE!
- So as I mentioned they are not only thinking ahead, they are asking questions… and getting ready for when the resources all over run out. This chart shows the steep incline in commodity prices in just the past ten years.
- One question they are asking is Will we continue to rely on incineration? So burning garbage made sense for a long time: burn garbage for district heating But now they have to keep ‘feeding the beast” ; This is a picture of what they call the Ski Slope. This baby looms over Copenhagen with that plume 24 hours per day. Importing waste + 25% 9% of all incinerated waste in Denmark was imported: 60% from England, 28% Ireland, 7% from Germany
- They have a big project going on a little green island we visited called Bornholm where they are capturing methane from pig waste – for the same district heating purposes as the incineration.
- Also on Bornholm, they are recycling water using algae – it’s 100% pure and drinkable!
- They also are looking at landfills as ‘long term storage facilities’ while they experiment – as you can see here – with mining landfills. SLIDE
- And they have a big initiative underway to get all the households sorting their organics. SLIDE
- In fact, the day I arrived at the woman’s apartment I was staying at, her compost bin had arrived, with this big happy brochure announcing, Now You Can Collect Your Organics!!!
- I ate a lot of wonderful produce over there. One night I even ate some worms… so they are also exploring ways to eat insects, as I’m sure some of you know a bit about.
- So, now, I’d like to show you the rest of the pictures I took along with some questions that I hope will start to prompt some creative thinking about how we live on this side of the pond. SLIDE
- I rarely saw a styrofoam cup or a paper plate. I don’t think I was eating in the most upscale places either. Everything was served really beautifully on real china.
- This is a refund station for reusable cups in the Tivoli Gardens. So all the cups inside the walls of their Disneyland -- are reusable.
- Here’s more detail…
- The children’s second hand store in a very trendy neighborhood was virtually indistinguishable from a regular childrens shop.
- They have an PROJECT going in Aarhus, their second largest city to Give things away for free. Like a giant swap shop.
- I loved this idea of being able to borrow all the stuff you need to have a party…. Can we do this in our thrift shops???
- These are sharing vouchers on bulletin board. Can we do this in our buildings, offices in addition to strangers on Freecycle.
- I visited with the folks at this company, Naboskab – They design these very attractive community “Free Store” and they consult with communities about how best to distribute goods amongst neighbors in a community. A few more quickly….
- Can we make sorting our trash and recyclables beautiful?
- Can we make depositing our trash on the street Patriotic?
- Something we do for each other?
- Or how about just plain fun?
- Speaking of FUN…. What other ways can we all have FUN? Here’s a label on a line of spices that gave me a smile….
- OK That’s it… Bye folks, I’m off!