It’s official – buff men make us recycle more

Santa's little helper is appearing in the buff on billboards throughout Sheffield in a bid to get local residents recycling all their old Christmas cards, party hats and wrapping paper.


Following the success of the movie-based Full Monthly recycling campaign (see related story), which has helped to treble residents’ recycling effort over the last 18 months, Sheffield County Council decided to give the campaign a festive revamp to encourage locals to recycle over the Christmas break.

So the latest Blue Christmas posters feature a “stripper” wearing nothing but his boxers, a Santa hat and a smile, and bare the message: “Have a Blue Christmas. Do the Full Monthly and Drop Them! Fill your blue bin with waste paper and card this season”.

Campaign organiser Jessica Twemlow said she hoped the new poster would remind people to pop their old Christmas catalogues and advent calendars in the blue recycling bin.

“We based the campaign on research which shows that women are most likely to start and continue recycling in the home, and that the most effective long-term recycling messages are localised, personal and not too hard hitting in tone,” she explained.

“The success of this approach exceeded even our expectations and we hope the Christmas appeal will catch people’s imagination and interest in the same way.”

And the great success of the first poster campaign is clear: Sheffield residents were recycling around 4% of their waste before the campaign started. After just two months this had shot up to 12.4%.

In a public poll conducted at the time, 91% of residents either “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the campaign was a good way of increasing recycling awareness. The website took over 300 hits during the first week of the campaign, and 65% of those logging on confirmed that they had seen the website address on the posters or adverts.

Eventure created the Full Monthly campaign using landfill tax credits from the Onyx Environmental Trust and Viridor Credits – Sheffield.

By Jane Kettle

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