New PSA Campaign Gives Garbage a Second Life

Keep America Beautiful and the Ad Council have teamed up to get people motivated to recycle. The new PSA campaign uses plastic bottles and aluminum cans – recycled into a bench, bike, sports stadium and more – to illustrate how recyclable materials can be given a second, useful life. The national campaign includes print, outdoor, radio and TV spots.

The first Keep America Beautiful campaign in the 1960s used “Susan Spotless” to promote anti-littering efforts with taglines like “Every litter bit hurts” and “Don’t be a litterbug.” (Oh the days of simple messaging…)

In its 60+ years, Keep American Beautiful, has used many strategies to encourage people to be responsible for their trash and raise awareness about pollution. In fact, four years ago the agency created a recycling department, which solely focuses on waster diversion and partners with state organizations, government officials, trade associations and businesses to advance its goals.

To get a handle on why its important to remind people to recycle consider these statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2011 survey…

• The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash annually (that’s more than 250 million tons of trash for the country as a whole)

• Only about 35% of this trash was actually recycled, while 52% of people say they are very or extremely knowledgeable about properly recycling.

So if people are aware its important to recycle, why aren’t they?
According to Peggy Conlon, president and chief executive of the Ad Council says its “partially because many of them do not know what they should recycle.” This campaign will help people make the connection between products that can be recycled and the value they can have when reused.

Of course the campaign has its own new URL, IWanttoBeRecycled.org where you can learn more about giving your garbage a second life and find your local recycling center.

So before you throw out that next can of pop, think… “When I grow up, I don’t want to be a piece of garbage. And if you recycle me, I won’t be.”