Sustainable Life: From Los Angeles to Copenhagen

Avamehr Vaghaiwalla

I landed in Copenhagen, Denmark with a type of adrenaline rush I had never felt before. I was leaving behind 80-degree, blue-sky Los Angeles, my hometown and campus at UCLA, for four months to be in a completely foreign city. Within weeks, tank tops were replaced with scarves, thermals, and puffers. The transition was abrupt, but eye-opening and extremely formative. As an Environmental Science student at UCLA, Copenhagen challenged me academically through my Danish environmental coursework, while completely reshaping my perspective on how I think about sustainability as an everyday lifestyle and global system.

The most immediate adjustment was the weather. Copenhagen’s autumn moved quickly from mild temperatures into a steady descent: 60°F to 50°F to 40°F, and eventually below 20°F. The city is famously gray with overcast skies that dominate most of the year. Sunlight can feel rare enough that residents, including myself, are suggested to take vitamin D supplements year-round. Copenhagen also averages about 170 rainy days per year, which was a dramatic contrast to Southern California’s dry climate. By November, daylight itself became a limited resource. The sun rose close to 8:00 a.m. and set around 3:30 p.m., leaving only a few dim hours of light. Adapting to these conditions, Danes lean into hygge, a Danish term signifying warm drinks, candles, and cozy interiors, to stay comfortable despite the grim climate. The wind, however, was impossible to ignore. Gusts smack your face and sometimes felt strong enough to knock me off balance, especially while biking. I found myself considering earmuffs for the first time in my life as survival gear instead of just a fashion statement. Scarves, rarely practical in LA, suddenly became essential to keep my neck warm.

One of my first observations in Copenhagen was how effortless transportation felt. The 24-hour metro system runs every few minutes and I could get from my apartment to campus in about 15 minutes on a single line. Suddenly, planning ahead for two-hour 405 traffic was no longer necessary. However, biking is the true backbone of the city. In Copenhagen, around 49% of all trips to work and school are via bicycle, making it the most common form of transportation. The city’s flat terrain and over 400 km of protected bike lanes make cycling highly efficient and safe. 

I biked 12 minutes to campus early in the semester, but stopped once the winter winds intensified. Still, watching the Danes bike confidently through windy storms, snowfall, and darkness made me realize that Denmark has successfully implemented sustainable infrastructure that functions in authentic conditions, not just ideal ones. Cars were also noticeably scarce in Copenhagen and the parking lots ubiquitous in Los Angeles were nowhere to be seen. I also learned that Copenhagen’s car-light design contributes directly to lower emissions and Denmark’s electricity grid already generates over 80% of its power from renewable sources, primarily wind.

Another sustainability lesson that hit me as soon as I first stepped into my apartment was how Denmark manages their waste. The first thing I noticed in my living room was that there was no general landfill bin. Instead, there were five neatly-labeled containers for paper, glass, metal, plastic, and compost. Walking through neighborhoods, trash cans were a rare sight and when they appeared, they were quite small. I thought this design choice was clever as it influences people to think before discarding something. Moreover, the effect was self-evident and I rarely saw litter anywhere in the city. This was also a drastic visual contrast from trash sorting in Los Angeles; on campus at UCLA I’ve even witnessed recycling, compost, and landfill bins get jumbled all together when collected. In Copenhagen, waste sorting felt collective and intentional, not performative. Denmark’s sorting practices emphasized to me that there is still so much improvement ahead for the United States. In one of my Danish sustainability courses I also learned that about 92% of bottles and cans are recycled through Denmark’s deposit-return system, which is one of the highest rates in the world. 

Towards the end of November, Copenhagen received a weekend of snow which locals told me was becoming less common and later each year. Experiencing snow in a city, not just in the Sierra Nevada mountains, was exciting but also reminded me of the very tangible effects of climate change. Globally, the average surface temperature has already risen about 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, contributing to shifting precipitation patterns and delayed snowfall across northern Europe. Copenhagen is actively responding, aiming to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital with policies targeting energy, transportation, and urban design.

Daily life in Copenhagen reinforced how sustainability is woven into governance. Tap water was encouraged and completely safe to drink, despite the higher levels of calcium. Denmark’s drinking water comes almost entirely from groundwater, requiring minimal treatment. I also found that plastic-heavy goods, such as chips and candy, were a lot more expensive. This was because Denmark applies environmental taxes on packaging and consumption, nudging consumers towards less wasteful choices. Spending on treats like coffee and pastries (which were top tier) also really added up. Coffee, usually between $7-9 USD, per cup became a reminder that price signals can shape behavior. Furthermore, the city and suburbs felt extraordinarily safe. Denmark consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, with very low violent crime rates. Personally, riding the metro at 3:00 a.m. felt no different than taking it at 2:00 p.m. It’s also common to see parents leave babies in strollers outside cafes, which is a level of trust that still amazes me. 

I will always look back fondly on my memories in Copenhagen. Aside from the delicious pastries, aesthetic architecture, and iconic canals through Nyhavn, my four months in Denmark reshaped my expectations of what a functional, sustainable city can look like. It also made me question what changes California could realistically adopt, from efficient transit integration to trash-bin sorting. Copenhagen showed me that sustainability can be more than ambitious goals. With the right leadership, we can design systems that make the sustainable choice, the easy one.