Like solar tax and wind tax, we will get trash tax

I read with utter disgust about the government’s plan to tax those who generate their own solar power.

As ludicrous as the idea to tax sunshine seems – possibly to be followed by taxing the wind that turns turbine fans – it could get worse.

A recent visit to Copenhagen left a handful of South Africans attending a motoring event in awe of how far ahead the Danish are in clean energy solutions.

Being a typical Scandinavian country, cold prevails over warm for the majority of the year. And where it gets cold for long periods with little or no help from the sun, indoor heating is required.

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This is something which requires enormous amounts of energy.

In their robust quest to become carbon neutral, Copenhagen has come up with an ingenious plan to relieve the Danish energy grid from household heating energy requirements.

All the city’s waste which can’t be recycled, is burnt in order to heat boilers.

Water is heated inside these boilers before being pumped throughout the city in an underground plastic piping network which heats up a staggering 90 000 households.

If you haven’t seen it in the flesh, you’d be forgiven for imagining a facility like this featuring industrial-size towers bellowing huge clouds of black smoke into the atmosphere.

Quite the opposite. At first glance, Copenhill looks like a modern office building overlooking the Copenhagen harbour.

There isn’t one truck offloading waste visible from the outside and not even a tiny piece of litter in close vicinity of the facility.

There is some sort of a chimney pipe sticking out at the top, but it doesn’t release any smoke.

It is almost unthinkable that a facility burning household trash to heat up 90,000 homes does not have any carbon emissions. Just the odd release of steam.

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Not that Copenhill needs any sideshows to enhance its stance as a modern-day marvel, but its functionality doesn’t end with boiling water.

Starting at the top of the building and curving downwards around a sloped rooftop is a state-of-the-art floodlit astro-turf ski-slope which operates all year round.

This comes with a ski centre complete with training slope and equipment shop in a neighbouring building.

If skiing isn’t your thing, Copenhill’s rooftop restaurant offers a 360-degree view which includes spectacular views of Copenhagen, the Swedish city of Malmo to the east across from the Sound (a straight separating the two countries).

On the way back to South Africa I entertained the simple thought of turning everyday trash into not only a brilliant energy solution, but a clean energy solution.

The one thing every household always has is waste.

There isn’t a more ideal solution than putting both the recyclable waste and the non-recyclable waste to good use.

Then I read about our tax-hungry government’s latest proposals and started having some doubts. Let’s say we build a Copenhill in Johannesburg.

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It will mean that when you use its piped hot water to heat your house, you will not use power from the grid.

In other words, like solar, you are costing Eskom money for not using and paying for its power.

This leads to one thing and one thing only. Tax. Yes, like solar tax and wind tax, we will get trash tax.

After being taxed in the form of VAT at the supermarket, we will be taxed again on our banana peels and used styrofoam cups for being tossed into the furnace.