You may not have actually noticed, but last Sunday was an official car-free day in a number of the Dutch towns and cities.

It’s an annual event, a day when children can reclaim the streets, cyclists can take over and the air instantly becomes pure – well that is the theory at least.
In Amsterdam, the city council apparently spends €500,000 on organising the event, presumably this money goes to pay for the officials who have to stop all the drivers who want to enter the car-free zone.
Popular support for the event is not exactly universal. Still, it is the thought that counts.
In one Amsterdam neighbourhood this year there was also an ‘environmental market’ on Sunday. This was an opportunity for local residents to test out organic food (apart from the most definitely non-organic and non-fair trade juice bar), to buy recycled goods (other people’s old junk) and for children to jump around on bouncy castles (more hot air).
There was also a rather sensible light bulb swap stall. If you handed over two ordinary lamps, you were given an energy-saving one in return.
Doubtless all this energy saving exhausted the organisers. They managed to go home leaving boxes of abandoned lamp bulbs mixed up with pineapple skins and other junk lying around the street for someone else to clean up. Not exactly much recycling going on there then.