Most tourists don’t schedule time for picking up trash. But Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, encourages visitors to do just that. The city hopes that tourists will visit museums and parks. It also wants newcomers to do good in the community. 

It’s all part of a four-week pilot project called CopenPay. The project rewards tourists for taking care of the city.

Twenty tourist attractions joined the project. One is GreenKayak. The non-profit offers water tours for tourist volunteers. People paddle through Copenhagen’s 17th-century waterways aboard green kayaks. While they take in the views, they collect floating trash. The reward? They don’t have to pay a cent for the ride. 

Tourists with green thumbs go to Oens Have urban garden. They trim flower beds, harvest coriander, or feed chickens. After their hard work, the farm provides lunch. 

Visitors get ice cream in exchange for cycling to the National Museum rather than hopping in a taxi.

At Denmark’s National Gallery, visitors join trash art workshops. They learn to turn plastic waste into jellyfish sculptures.

Millions of tourists visited Copenhagen last year. Visitors are great for businesses. Cities make much money from the extra sales. 

But tourism isn’t always great for the planet. The airplanes and cars that visitors travel in add pollution to the air. Tourists usually don’t clean up after themselves before heading home. Some cities are trying different strategies to solve these problems. Venice now charges visitors $5.45 to enter the city for a day. In Japan, one town uses a big screen to block the view of Mount Fuji. The reason? Misbehaving tourists.

Rather than keep tourists out, Copenhagen opted to let them pitch in. 

The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. — Psalm 24:1