The discreet charm of Viennese rubbish

The Austrian capital’s waste system is the envy of other European cities, writes Edward Steen.

It is not often that an incinerator plant, even one as colourful as the Friedensreich Hundertwasser-decorated Spittelau plant by the Danube Canal, makes it onto YouTube.

But after his visit last week, Matteo Renzi, president of the province of Florence, felt moved to sing the praises of Vienna’s hi-tech system for disposing of around 860,000 tonnes a year of household waste, and turning most of it into electricity or district heating.

Renzi said that the Viennese model had opened his eyes to how cities should deal with waste, referring to Naples which has several thousand tonnes of rotting waste on its streets. "Incinerators are the only solution for us," he said*.

Spittelau, one of three Vienna incinerators, gets through about a third of Vienna’s rubbish, and produces 40,000 MWh of electricity and 500,000 MWh of heating - enough for 60,000 households. Altogether 250,000 apartments in the city are now supplied with district heating.

The city’s way with its 2 million citizens’ rubbish is central to ‘KliP Wien’, the Vienna Climate Protection Programme, one of the reasons for the city’s reputation as the cleanest and best-run of Europe’s capitals. It has involved systematic encouragement and coercion of householders to sort their rubbish into up to eight categories; it is then finely re-sorted before the final alchemy takes place.

The three incinerators are all in the city itself, so gaining public acceptance has involved careful exclusion of rubbish such as plastics and elaborate gas filters on the chimneys. Detailed real-time information about air quality is provided online - along with a promise to switch the plant off instantly if any of the main indicators go into the red.

Fairly hefty public subsidy, including the employment of 1,130 workers engaged in recycling and district-heating, is an unavoidable part of such an approach.

KliP Wien initiatives range from the obvious, such as better insulation, installing plugs that automatically switch off unused computers, discouraging plastic bags and unrecyclable packing, encouraging re-use of buildings and building materials, to ambitious experiments like carrying freight on trams, and building a mini hydropower plant into the Nussdorf lock on the canal.

The latter generates electricity for about 10,000 households and cuts 17,900 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year. The project received the European Climate Star award in 2004.

Public transport is also central. Visitors to Vienna are struck by the pedestrian and bicycle-friendly regime, and the excellent, inexpensive trams and U-bahn, with a new 16-minute train connection from Schwechat Airport into the centre.

An increasing share of the city’s electricity and heat comes from renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal energy, hydropower and biomass.

Vienna’s public swimming facilities are partially heated by 14,000 sq m of solar panels (reducing CO2 emissions by about 700 tonnes). Over at the Polarium at Schönbrunn Zoo, the penguins keep cool thanks to solar-powered air-conditioning.

Renewable energy in Vienna now accounts for 18% of electricity supplies, and 13% of district heating; Vienna is currently negotiating with other Austrian Länder on introducing a national law that all new buildings in Austria must be equipped with thermal solar panels.

Ulli Sima, Vienna’s executive city councillor for the environment, argues that global warming is "the" issue of our time, but grand declarations will do little to fulfil the Kyoto Protocol commitment to a 13% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2012. "Only by setting an example," she says, "will we be able to convince others as well."

Vienna’s dedicated climate-protection policies have resulted in the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in Austria, with an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of 2.4m tons, she claims.

Critics claim Vienna’s efforts are only a drop of water on a hot stove, unable to be truly radical because of the power of the gas and electricity lobbies. They point instead to the extraordinary achievements of the small town (27,000 population) of Güssing, hard on the Hungarian border.

Once a rotting backwater in what was the poorest region in the country, most of its population commuted to Vienna or simply left.

Since deciding in 1990 to get out of fossil fuels altogether, cutting 50% of public use of energy, and building bio-diesel and biomass district heating plants (with much EU help), it has never looked back. Investment in renewable energy - which now supplies all its needs - transformed its economy, created more than 1,000 jobs, and cut its CO2 emissions by 92%.

A new, environmental approach to the surrounding forests has created a virtuous circle which has helped make Güssing Austria’s second largest producer of parquet flooring - and a mecca for environmental technology.

* www.youtube.com/watch?v= amrG9WrXIOo

The Austrian capital’s waste system is the envy of other European cities, writes Edward Steen.