NYC Ad Campaign Touts ‘Recycle Everything’ Effort

Following the largest expansion of New York City’s recycling program in 25 years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has unveiled a multi-channel consumer advertising campaign designed to drive awareness of recycling and motivate New Yorkers to “Recycle Everything,” the new tagline of the effort.

The effort focuses around print/poster ads featuring pop art-like collages. The ads feature examples of key recyclables such as newsprint, plastic bottles, food containers and aluminum cans, covered with colorful logos of major marketers torn from the packaging. Each ad carries a headline such as “Give new life to old plastic,” the “Recycle Everything” tagline, and NYC Recycles logo.

Posters can be seen across a variety of media, including buses, subways, transit shelters, taxi tops, phone kiosks and the Staten Island Ferry.

In April, New York City put two initiatives into effect to improve waste and recycling efforts. The first is an expansion of its recycling program to include the recycling of all rigid plastics, including items such as toys, hangers, shampoo bottles, coffee cups and food containers. The second effort, the Food Waste Challenge, is aimed at reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills. The initiative is expected to help meet NYC’s goal of diverting 75% of solid waste from landfills by 2030. Food waste currently comprises one-third of the city’s more than 20,000 tons of daily refuse and restaurants account for 70 percent of commercial food waste.

The recycling expansion is expected to result in more than 50,000 additional tons of waste a year no longer ending up in landfills. It will also save taxpayers almost $600,000 each year in export costs and at least $60 million total, said Mayor Bloomberg. By 2017, Mayor Bloomberg says the city will be diverting 550,000 tons of trash from landfills each year. The Mayor expects its recycling rates to double to 30% by 2017.

Major corporations partnered with the city in the new recycling effort, granting the use of their brand logos for the advertising campaign.  The list includes PepsiCo, Evian, Chobani, Goya Foods, Arizona Beverage Co., Energizer Holdings, Amy’s Kitchen, Thai Union Group, Happy Family, Seventh Generation and media properties including the New York Post, New York Magazine, Time Out, Better Homes and Gardens, More, Fitness, Inc., El Diario and Paper magazine.

The ad campaign was created by Grey New York.