Rotterdam has launched an even more ambitious project, backed by Rabobank and the transport and waste departments of the city council. It pays electronic points onto a smart card to reward green behaviour - anything from buying eco-label products to recycling. If you buy organic food, or ethical investment products or bicycles, or if you separate your waste and take it to recycling centres, you earn points on your plastic Nu- SpaarPas.
You can spend them on public transport - as in Curitiba - or theatre tickets, or sports training, or going to the zoo, or education, and, eventually, green tourism.
This is similar thinking to that behind the time banks. Good neighbourly behaviour and 'green behaviour� take extra time, but nobody notices, nobody rewards it and nobody thanks you. The Nu-SpaarPas means you can reward them with the city�s spare capacity - at theatres, in sports centres or on the trams. Thus you can be 'efficient� in a way that simple accountancy with ordinary money never allows.
