Lamar Advertising Donates Billboard Displays For ‘Let’s recycle right!’ PSA Campaign
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Minneapolis-based Nonprofit organization Recycle Across America has partnered with Lamar Advertising Company, Baton Rouge-based out-of-home advertising company, to promote RAA’s celebrity-led “Let’s recycle right!” campaign across the US.
The campaign introduces the new society-wide standardized labeling solution for recycling bins, which has proven to help people recycle more and to help people recycle right.
The society-wide standardized labeling solution and the ‘Let’s’ campaign are coming at a critical time when U.S. recycling levels are beginning to fall from an already low 35%, down to 33% and when major recycling haulers are declaring recycling unprofitable and announcing closings of their recycling processing plants.
The standardized labels are a simple, commonsense solution that have proven to increase recycling levels 50-100%, while significantly decreasing the amount of ‘garbage’ that is historically thrown in recycling bins due to a confused, apathetic and often skeptical public. The millions of tons of garbage thrown in recycling bins every day has been crippling the quality and economics of recycling, preventing many manufacturers from being able to use the materials.
The donated billboard space from Lamar for the ‘Let’s’ campaign, in addition to the donated TV, radio, cable and print from other leading media organizations, is already advancing the solution of the standardized labels and helping society recycle right. For instance, as a result of the pilot of the Let’s campaign, Bank of America learned about RAA and began using the standardized labels on the recycling bins in their facilities which proved to make it easier for their employees and visitors to recycle more and recycle right. In addition, Bank of America donated 26,000 standardized labels to all the K-12 public schools in Orange County Public School District in Orlando, FL to help OCPS students and future generations begin to recycle right as well.
The Let’s campaign features a host of celebrities, musicians, athletes and other influencers who are donating their time, names and voices to this solution. The ‘Let’s’ campaign is now being referred to as the new ‘Got Milk’ campaign, but for recycling. Beginning this week Lamar billboards will begin displaying the faces of celebrities such as: Angie Harmon, Kristen Bell, Bill Maher, Elvis Nolasco, Stana Katic, AnnaSophia Robb, Ian Somerhalder and many others who are introducing the society-wide standardized labels for recycling bins to begin repairing U.S. recycling.
“Proper recycling saves millions of tons of waste, and the Recycle Across America’s campaign aligns with Lamar’s commitment to the environment,” says Allie McAlpin, communications director of Lamar Advertising. The company’s billboards are helping to raise awareness about this important initiative. “And we are proud to continue our relationship with Recycle Across America.”
“Lamar is a powerful alliance to help this solution advance more quickly – at a time in the U.S. when recycling is desperately needing a solution to make it more viable,” says Mitch Hedlund, executive director of Recycle Across America. “Lamar was tremendously generous when it donated billboard space for our pilot of the ‘Let’s’ campaign and we are absolutely thrilled and grateful to be partnering with the company once again for our official multi-media launch.
“As demonstrated by Bank of America, the ‘Let’s’ PSA ads creates a measurable domino affect of environmental and economic progress that can be directly linked back to the gift of advertising space from amazing media partners such as Lamar! Lamar is an environmental game changer because it is able to inspire change at a macro level and rapidly pollinate progress.”
Historically there have been hundred of thousands of confusing and inconsistent labels on recycling bins throughout the U.S., resulting in a confused and apathetic public, and subsequently millions of tons of garbage are being thrown in recycling bins each day. The garbage thrown in recycling bins is extremely costly to remove, often lessening the quality of the materials and making the commodity pricing of recycled materials more expensive than virgin materials and less desirable for manufacturers to use. In turn, this is causing the recycling industry to declare that recycling isn’t profitable and move toward closing recycling plants.
The society-wide labeling solution for recycling bins is now being used by thousands of K-12 schools and universities, public destinations and some of the most notable businesses and brands in the world. To date there are more than a million of RAA’s standardized labels on recycling bins throughout the U.S.
Recycle Across America (RAA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which has developed the first and only society-wide standardized labeling system for recycling bins to help eliminate the public confusion surrounding recycling and to improve the economics of closed loop manufacturing. RAA’s standardized labels have been identified as a world-changing solution by Ashoka Global Innovators for the Public and are being referred to as “one of the most important environmental fixes taking root today.
Founded in 1902, Lamar Advertising Company (Nasdaq: LAMR) is one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in North America, with more than 315,000 displays across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Lamar offers advertisers a variety of billboard, interstate logo and transit advertising formats, helping both local businesses and national brands reach broad audiences every day. In addition to its more traditional out-of-home inventory, Lamar is proud to offer its customers the largest network of digital billboards in the United States with over 2,000 displays.
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