When you walk by your kitchen trash can do you ever hear a tiny voice saying, “Please help me! I want to be recycled!” Well you might want to pay attention then. Your bottles, cans, cardboard, glass and many other recyclable items are trying to communicate with you. They want to be recycled.
The “I Want to Be Recycled” campaign is targeted to motivate Americans to recycle every day. Created for free by San Francisco-based ad agency Pereira & O’Dell, the campaign shows that recyclable materials can be given another life and become something new if someone chooses to recycle.
Think of it as reincarnation for household items. This makes us wonder whether these household items believe in karma, too.
For instance, do the nicest plastic bottles come back as designer jeans and t-shirts? Or do the sincerest tin cans return as steel tubing in fancy bicycles?
This campaign directs audiences to IWantToBeRecycled.org, a website with a localized search tool allowing users to find where to recycle in their local community. You can also always contact Keep Liberty Beautiful or the Liberty County Solid Waste Department for local information as well at 912-880-4888.
The campaign website illustrates the recycling process through interactive infographics and offers detailed information on what materials can be recycled, how they should be recycled and what products they can become in the future.
Why recycle? The average American produces 4.4 pounds of trash a day, and on the whole the United States produces more than 250 million tons of trash a year. However, only about 35 percent are currently recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The National Ad Council and Keep America Beautiful (KAB) launched this public service advertising (PSA) campaign designed to address this concern by raising awareness about the benefits of recycling.
According to research released by the Ad Council, only 52 percent of Americans say that they are “very” or “extremely” knowledgeable about how to properly recycle. Additionally, only 38 percent say they are “avid recyclers,” recycling as much as possible and willing to go out of their way to do so.
While there are several barriers to recycling, among the most common reasons given for not recycling are that respondents did not have enough information about where to recycle or what types of materials they are able to recycle.
Some of the top reasons to recycle are:
• Recycling conserves natural resources, such as trees, water, and minerals.
• Recycling prevent pollution caused by the extracting and processing of raw materials.
• Recycling reduces the need for more landfills and incinerators because when materials are recycled, less waste is sent for disposal.
• Recycling saves energy by eliminating the need to extract and process raw materials.
• Recycling helps to create new jobs for both the recycling industry and manufacturing.
So listen to those tiny voices trying to get your attention. Recycling is an easy way – one of the simplest ways ever – to make a long-term difference for our environment