Mexican tourist Rocio Gomez spent an hour boating on Copenhagen’s canals free of charge in exchange for picking up trash in the water, part of a city programme for rewarding eco-friendly tourists.
During her tour on an electric motorboat, which normally costs around $95 an hour, Rocio collected trash in the Copenhagen port.
“You’re doing something helpful and you’re also having a good time,” she said.
The 34-year-old who works in sustainable development said she planned to take advantage of other similar deals offered in Copenhagen during her visit.
From mid-June until late August, the CopenPay initiative offers around 100 activities in exchange for free or reduced prices on a selection of experiences.
Participants can get a coffee, pastry or concert ticket in exchange for an hour of picking up trash; money back on a restaurant dinner if they do some gardening; or a free guided tour for those who stay in the city longer than three days.
“You’re doing something helpful and you’re also having a good time”
“We saw that four out of five people actually want to do good, but only one does it. So we wanted to see how we could bridge that gap and inspire more people to do good,” said Rikke Holm Petersen, head of communications at the Wonderful Copenhagen tourism board.
The initiative was tested on a smaller scale last year, when 75,000 people took part. This year Wonderful Copenhagen expects at least twice as many.
The number of companies and institutions taking part, and getting no financial gain in return, has increased four-fold.
The campaign targets tourists but applies to anyone who wants to participate.
At the motorboat rental company GoBoat, as at many other places, the offer is limited.
“Around 60 people can come every Tuesday and Thursday morning” after signing up on a CopenPay website, said GoBoat’s Isabel Smith.
A marine biologist, Smith is in charge of analysing the trash hauled by CopenPay users, averaging two kilos per boat, most of which is plastic.
“I measure the plastic by width and length, then identify the type of plastic,” she said.
“This will contribute to our current understanding of the role of the harbour and plastic pollution.”
Spreading abroad?
The programme has proven popular with tourists.
“When you are travelling to different places, you want to experience different things. And I found that this is pretty amazing,” Gomez said.
“At the beginning, it was pretty clean − extremely clean − but then we found certain corners that were pretty dirty.”
“And then we started to pick up all the trash from the corners with bamboo nets.”
Also in her boat was Marta Reschiglian, an Italian student visiting Copenhagen with a group of friends on an Erasmus university exchange programme.
“Since we are students and we are sometimes on a really tight budget, it’s so nice to be able to do these things, to combine a bit of a sustainable, friendly behaviour and also a way to get things for free,” Reschiglian said.
“Lots of cities should start to adopt these kinds of initiatives,” she added. “We are seeing all over the world that there are so many problems with mass tourism.”
The project could spread to other cities outside Denmark.
“We’ve been sharing insights with 100 destinations all over the world,” said Petersen at Wonderful Copenhagen.
In the Danish capital, the initiative could become permanent in the future, with a winter programme as well.
Around four million tourists visit Copenhagen each year, the majority in summer.
