How to make an incinerator popular? Put a ski slope on it

Idea of topping municipal plant in Copenhagen with urban ski resort won accolades for Danish architecture firm

It might be the first waste incinerator the neighbours actually want next door. The shop at the foot of the Amager Bakke waste-to-energy project in Copenhagen is packed with families desperate to be among the first to try its unique selling point: the ski slope on the roof.

"I live so close by that I could follow the development," says Ole Fredslund, who lives in neighbouring Amager, as he helped his sons Felix and Victor strap on their boots as the slope opened its lifts for the first time on Tuesday. "I guess 90% of the focus is on the fact that there's a skiing hill coming, so in a way it's very clever. Everybody talks about the ski hill to be, not the waste plant to be."