THE CHALLENGE: Every day nearly 20 tons of good recyclables are sent to the landfill. And while curbside recycling has come a long way, a lack of sorting and a “when in doubt, put it in” philosophy caused some problems. So to improve the process and reduce waste, Metro needed to get two messages across: Keep plastic bags out of curbside bins, and put glass on the side.

THE APPROACH: So how do you tell the people who helped pioneer the bottle bill, “Thanks for recycling but you’re doing it wrong”? Maybe you don’t. As we dug, our shovels hit something solid: Everyone recycles for one reason—it’s the right thing to do. No one intentionally sabotages the recycling process. Residents want to do it right, but don’t know how. We need to make this a team effort. And the line, “Together, our efforts won’t go to waste.” does just that.

THE WORK: All messages from Metro have a cooperative tone (no finger pointing). In the commercials, self-respecting recyclables are the heroes. Glass bottles sort themselves into a bucket and a recycling bin coughs out plastic bags. Outside the living room, residents receive friendly reminder slips from their haulers and a flatbed trailer carries a day’s worth of ruined recyclables (20 tons) to each city for show and tell.

THE RESULTS: Thanks to the folks in PR, Metro’s recycling story was picked up by three of the four major stations with more than one story on two of the stations. Additionally, we got airtime on three radio stations and newspaper coverage in the four counties. In total, we generated $60,000 of earned media value—over 1/3 of the value of their paid media buy. After one week, Metro was receiving over 100 unique web visitors per day as a direct result of this campaign and dozens of callers to the hotline to boot. And after three weeks, haulers noticed fewer plastic bags and that, indeed, glass was being put on the side. Overall, Metro considers this one of their most successful marketing efforts to date.