The unsung heroes in our communities deserve to have their efforts recognised from time to time, don't they? Well, in some places, they already do. An increasing number of city councils, regional authorities and government agencies are encouraging socially responsible behaviour by incentivising good deeds like recycling, volunteering and careful driving. We take a look at 30 of these good citizen initiatives and reveal the rewards they offer.
Tokyo's metropolitan government is introducing a new reward system, whereby citizens who perform good deeds will be rewarded with e-money that they can spend. The actions recognised include commuting early to ease the public transport rush hour chaos, and reusing shopping bags. Each deed will garner the equivalent of a dollar (82p). Earlier this year, Tokyo also trialled a scheme to ease congestion on the Tozai line metro route, by offering free soba noodles and tempura to commuters who travelled outside of peak times.
In Bracknell, UK, it pays to be green. Bracknell Forest Council, which covers the Berkshire towns of Bracknell, Sandhurst and Crowthorne, dishes out e-card incentive points to residents who correctly recycle their rubbish. These points can be exchanged for everything from gym and swimming sessions at the local leisure centre to cut-price cinema tickets. Alternatively, if you're a seriously selfless citizen, you can donate your points to one of the local good causes that the scheme also supports.
In the US, citizens who rat out tax cheats can be rewarded generously for blowing the whistle. For businesses that owe more than $2 million (£1.6m) or individuals who fail to declare taxes exceeding $200,000 (£162k), the whistleblower stands to be awarded between 15% and 30% of the money collected. For totals under these amounts, the payout is up to 15%. However, the scheme isn't easy, as you need to gather copious amounts of proof to file a claim and may have to wait up to seven years for a payout.
In a similar vein, the US government rewards those who share information about fraudsters. In accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010, people who blow the whistle on certain types of fraudulent activity can be eligible for a fat payout. These include filing false accounting statements, Ponzi schemes and insider trading. If the monetary sanctions exceed $1 million (£810k), the SEC will pay 10% to 30% of the total amount collected.
In Pune, an Indian city where drivers are notoriously lax about following traffic rules, traffic cops might be onto something with this clever reward scheme. Rather than just fining those who disobey the rules, they've teamed up with food delivery platforms, restaurants, clothing stores and electrical retailers to offer money-off vouchers to motorists who obey traffic rules to the letter. Diligent drivers can snag up to a 50% discount on a variety of items, and so far more than 15,000 citizens have been rewarded.
Cryptocurrency may have got a bad name lately, but this scheme is using it to reward good citizens. Dubbed 'the world's first community loyalty point' scheme, HullCoin is a crytocurrency programme that was launched in Hull in 2014. HullCoins are issued to residents of the UK city who engage in good works such as volunteering. The digital tokens can then be used to obtain discounts in local stores that have signed up to the scheme.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, leaky sewers are a constant problem – in November 2018, more than 7 million gallons of sewage water leaked into local creeks following heavy rainfall. To combat the issue, the city has a Sanitary Sewer Overflow (SSO) Reporting Reward Program, which encourages citizens to report leaks. The first person to alert the authorities is rewarded with a cheque for $50 (£41). What's more, if you spot someone illegally dumping into sewers, you could be eligible for a $5,000 (£4k) reward.
Imagine if the wealthiest people in the world got special treatment just for paying their fair share of taxes? Sadly, in countries where tax evasion and avoidance is the norm, that's what it's come to. In Pakistan, there's a scheme which entitles the top 100 taxpayers to free passports and fast-track clearance, as well as enhanced baggage allowances and access to airport VIP lounges. With the World Bank reporting earlier this year that around half of the country's tax revenue potential is untapped, it seems there's a long way to go in ensuring people pay their fair share.
In the London borough of Camden, do-gooders can see their good actions go even further. Camden Council rewards residents who recycle correctly with donations for local charities, as well as offering each participant the chance to to win one of five $37 (£30) shopping vouchers each month. In May this year, it was reported that five good causes, including mental health charity Mind and Cancer Research UK, had received $6,166 (£5k) from the scheme.
In July, traffic police in Tempe, Arizona started a 'positive ticketing' campaign, pulling over motorists who follow bicycle and pedestrian laws and rewarding them with free soft drink vouchers for Circle K stores. Yet the campaign has sparked public outcry, with some people slamming the cops for panicking motorists unnecessarily and wasting their time.
In August this year, the Ministry of Industry in the Argentinian province of Misiones launched the Hive scheme, a cryptocurrency scheme that rewards residents who recycle correctly. Each citizen must register as either a waste 'producer', 'collector' or 'generator', then producers are connected with collectors via the platform, who will sort the garbage before taking it to generators who process the waste. Each participant is rewarded with JellyCoin tokens, which can then be used in local stores or to offset municipal and provincial taxes.
Taiwan's receipt lottery, or the Uniform Invoice Scheme as it's officially called, has become something of a national institution. Launched back in 1951, as an ingenious way to ensure businesses declare sales for tax purposes, customers who request receipts from retailers are entered into a multimillion-dollar monthly lottery. Prizes can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, which is not bad for just asking for a receipt.
The government of São Paulo in Brazil operates a similar scheme but with added extras. Established in 2007, its Nota Fiscal Paulista programme is essentially a receipt lottery which offers participants monetary credits that they can transfer to a current or savings account, or use to offset tax bills. These schemes are a win-win: the government gets more money from tax, and citizens are rewarded for making sure businesses pay their way.
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A number of countries have followed suit. Portugal, Poland, Slovakia and other nations around the world have similar receipt lotteries in operation, with Greece being the latest to launch such an initiative. Each month 1,000 winners are awarded the equivalent of $1,100 (£892), which is exempt from income tax.
For those who live in the Philippines, reporting illegal drug activity can lead to big cash rewards. In June last year, one informant received a reward of 2 million Philippine peso ($38.3k/£31.1k) for giving information about four drug personalities. The Operation Private Eye scheme is extremely contentious, however, given the Filipino government's brutal war on drugs, which has been bitterly criticised for encouraging extrajudicial killings, so much so that the International Criminal Court in The Hague is conducting an investigation into the widespread human rights abuses.
Given the huge disparities in cigarette prices across America, with the base price of pack in New York at $12.85 (£10.42) against just $6.85 (£5.55) in neighbouring Pennsylvania, smuggling and tobacco tax evasion are rife. To help deal with the issue, New York as well as other states including California and Illinois reward people who report retailers selling bootleg cigarettes.
In the UK, you can get rewarded simply for walking or hopping on your bike. That's thanks to the Beat the Street scheme, run by various local councils during a six-week period each year. It's run in a game-like format to make it appeal to families and kids, with participants earning points as they walk, run or cycle. Those who earn the most points win prizes in the form of shopping vouchers. The scheme, created as a wider effort to get more people active, had around a million participants the last time it ran in July this year.
As a way of promoting careful driving at the start of the summer holiday season, traffic police in Dordogne, France rewarded attentive motorists with $55 (£45) vouchers last year. The scheme, sponsored by radio station France Bleu Périgord, was reported to be a success, rolled out alongside other initiatives as part of a broader government effort to reduce fatalities on the roads.
The Brazilian city of Curitiba in Paraná state has a recycling reward scheme called Lixo Que Não é Lixo (Garbage That is Not Garbage). Residents who separate organic from non-organic waste and follow all other recycling rules qualify for freebies, including complimentary food, books and public transport tickets. Yet the effectiveness of the initiative has been called into question, with Brazilian newspaper Gazeta do Povo reporting in 2016 that just 5.7% of the city's garbage is recycled, despite the scheme running since 2010.
In a bid to get more people volunteering, Portsmouth City Council rewards residents who volunteer 100 hours or more of their time to charities, hospitals, community groups or public services. They're given a ValueYou discount card loaded with discounts and gift credits, which can be used at participating retail stores, restaurants, beauty parlours and more. Walsall Council and 16 London boroughs also run the scheme.
Graffiti artists spray paint at their peril in San Diego, where residents can bag an alluring $500 (£406) for catching them in the act and giving the cops information that leads to their arrest. The scheme, named 'Spray and Pay', is operated by the San Diego Police Department in conjunction with the Office of the City Attorney and the Code Enforcement Graffiti Control Program.
A similar scheme is operated by police in Western Australia, whereby anyone who reports graffiti vandalism can qualify for a cash reward. The Goodbye Graffiti Rewards campaign was launched on 1 November 2017 and went viral not long after, for all the wrong reasons. Its awkward promotional video was slammed by social media users, who called it "cringeworthy" and "the worst video I have ever seen".
Citizens in parts of Singapore can earn rewards for recycling. Bins are tagged with chips which can detect the weight of material inside, giving one point for each kilo of recycling that is collected. These points can then be spent in retail stores or donated to local charities. In the first six months of the scheme, which was introduced in 2012, recycling in the areas in which it operates increased four-fold.
In order to clamp down on illegal dumping, Oakland, California, has started rewarding hawk-eyed residents who can spot people in the act and hand information over to the police. The reward scheme allows citizens who report the criminals to receive half of all penalties imposed, once the dumpers are prosecuted and fined.
Founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico back in 1976, Crime Stoppers (styled 'Crimestoppers' in the UK) now operates in 26 countries worldwide. The scheme allows citizens to report criminal activity anonymously and offers cash rewards for any information that leads to the arrest and/or conviction of a suspect or suspects.
Recycling schemes come in many different shapes and sizes – these 'reverse vending machines' in Wyndham, Australia allow people to recycle their trash in return for offers and prize draw entries. Among the rewards that participants can win are discount offers for food and drinks, gym passes and memberships, and charity donations.
In the UK, it seriously pays to be a whistleblower. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) offers financial rewards of up to $123,000 (£100k) to individuals who report cartel activity. This includes dodgy agreements between businesses to limit the supply of goods or services, price fixing, and the rigging of bids in a tendering process.
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The government of North Korea runs a highly questionable scheme, offering rewards to citizens who snitch on others for partaking in so-called illegal activity. In the totalitarian state illegal activity includes anything as minor as openly criticising the government or using unauthorised mobile phones. The rewards are paltry, at the equivalent of only $6 (£5) to $7 (£6), and with many people having to resort to crime just to make ends meet, many aren't forthcoming about reporting them to the authorities.
In a heartwarming initiative, last Christmas cops in Pensacola, Florida handed out $50 (£41) gift cards to people they saw performing good deeds like helping an elderly person cross the street or traipsing across a parking lot to return a shopping cart. It's unclear whether the Operation Police Navidad scheme will be repeated this Christmas, but it certainly went down well with local residents.
It might sound like it's straight out of Big Brother or an episode of Black Mirror, but China's sinister Social Credit System is actually real. The scheme, which will be fully implemented next year, assigns each citizen a 'social credit score'. People are rewarded for good behaviour and sanctioned if they do anything out of turn. Rewards for top scorers include hotel upgrades and discounts on utility bills, while punishments for those with low points range from travel bans to restrictions on internet use.
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