6 February 2020

Climate friendly waste sorting in the Maersk Tower

Garbage sorting

At the Department for Health and Medical Sciences, they struggle to reach UCPH’s goals for waste management. In 2016, there was presented new sorting guidelines and through the past years more garbage fractions has been introduced. Asger L. Christensen is responsible for waste and resource managing at Department for Health and Medical Sciences and he actively contributes to an increased focus on sorting at source.

Maersk Tower is 15 meters. Due to this, garbages chutes were made for one fraction only A pilot scheme with sorting at source at every floor has enabled employees and students to sort their waste. The small efforts are crucial here. To ensure user-friendliness every fraction has its own colour and the trashbins have the same height.

Asger is confident that it is important to keep the employees updated and continuously review the project. I this way it is more likely that they react if e.g. a bin is missing. The effort is strengthened by initiatives as Beyond Coffee – a company that use coffee ground to grow eatable oyster mushrooms – because it increases the engagement of the staff members. It is crucial that students and employees know where to deliver the different fractions of waste. Therefore a map over the building and a guide for sorting waste is presented in a folder on sorting of waste that Asger contributed to. As the folder notes, the effort has led to a positive development; the Department for Health and Medical Sciences has become better at recycling.