Cooled By Controversy In The U.S., Trash Incinerators Are Firing Up In Europe

Burning trash to generate power is controversial in the United States. Most incinerators were built decades ago and are blamed for health problems and pollution.

But in Europe, they're more accepted, newer and arguably cleaner. A new incinerator in Copenhagen, Denmark — which wants to become the world's first carbon-neutral capital by 2025 — sits conspicuously in the city center and has been turning garbage into heat since 2017.

It also has a year-round ski slope on top which attracts visitors, recoups some of the expenses and helps burnish the plant's "clean" image.

All but one of the roughly 75 trash incinerators operating in the U.S. are much older than Copenhagen's Amager Resource Center — the newest opened in Florida in 2015. Older plants had to be retrofitted with modern pollution controls in the 1990s to meet new standards. Peter Blinksbjerg, chief engineer of Amager, says he sees two key differences between incinerators like his and those in America.