MS Zambia Newsletter November 2009

Going green in Denmark

Morgan Mwangala, a volunteer of the Youth Association of Zambia, has just returned from a study trip on climate responsibility in Denmark.

By Lena Vind-Andersen, Information Officer, MS Zambia

03. November 2009

“I had never heard that you could use waste to produce energy.” Morgan Mwangala, 21, has learned a lot about alternative energy sources while visiting Denmark in August. He was part of a group of 24 young people from developing countries, invited by MS Denmark to be a “climate detective” for a few weeks. That involved attending the international workshop on climate change, “Bright Green Youth” (BGY), as well as hitch hiking around Denmark to trace the climate responsibility of the Danes.

The first experience he had of the Danes, however, was going by train to the town, where the BGY conference was held: “It was quite funny, because the train announcer kept saying: “Put away your phones and talk to the person next to you”. But nobody did. Danes apparently don’t talk much to strangers, so they are difficult to get to know. But at least they will answer if you start up a conversation,” he laughs. Fortunately, both the conference and the hitch hiking gave ample opportunities to do just that.

The BGY conference was attended by almost 500 youths from around the world and the main agenda was to find new ideas and solutions for climate issues. At the end of the 4-day conference 3 good ideas were chosen to be presented to the Danish government prior to the top climate conference, COP 15, which will be held in Copenhagen in December 2009.  The three main ideas were to develop road bumps that can produce energy when cars go over them, a system for using rain water to produce electricity in houses and using a new technology that captures sound from roads and transforms it into energy. Morgan’s project group developed an idea for using a system of eco credits, reflecting the environmental damage of buying different consumer products. This idea was among the 14 best chosen and will be made available to the participants of the COP 15 as well.

After the conference, Morgan set out to hitch hike around Denmark armed with a bright green sweat shirt, written signposts to his destination and some trepidation.

“It turned out to be much easier than I thought; usually we got a ride within 30 minutes. There was only one place where we had a really hard time and only got lifts that took us a few kilometres at a time.” The 24 participants were paired up in two’s for the hitchhiking and along the way they visited different energy plants, among them off shore windmill parks, solar panel plants, waste management plants and water cleaning plants as well as museums and schools.

 

They stayed in the homes of ordinary Danish families on the way, which had been alerted through radio campaigns that the youths were passing through and needed accommodation. “The host families were very friendly and we had lots of interesting conversations. There was one man in particular, who worked as a prison guard, with whom we spent all night talking about politics. He was very interested in our points of view. The next morning he lent us a tandem bike to get to our next destination. I had never tried riding one of those.”

Click here to watch Morgan’s experience with the tandem bike and the hitchhiking in this film. See instructions for download below.

So, what did Morgan learn about the Danes? “The Danes are generally quite aware of the challenges of climate change and they are going in the right direction with using more renewable sources of energy and recycling their waste. There is a lot of good technology available, but I also learned that some Danes are reluctant to use it, because they think it’s too expensive. “

The things which impressed him the most, and which he thinks could be useful in Zambia are the ideas of recycling as much waste as possible and using the rest to create energy. “In Zambia, we do not recycle waste at all, but there are a lot of things we could collect and use again, like plastic bottles, paper and metal. In the compound I live in, everybody just throws their waste everywhere and occasionally just burn a pile to get rid of it. In Denmark the government has put up special containers for collection everywhere, where waste can be separated into different types, and while this might not be possible in Zambia just yet, we could at least improve on the collection and use it to produce energy in a more organised manner. We need to supplement our energy supply, so this could be a good way of doing it.” Morgan is determined to begin the waste management revolution in Zambia, by trying to improve conditions in his own compound, just for a start.