Green Rubbish

The streets of London City have had 100 newspaper recycling bins installed - with a techy twist. The new facilities, or ‘techno-pods’, developed by Renew double up as information screens; displaying a raft of useful messages from tube times to news stories. It even displays the number of Boris bikes available in the area.

These multipurpose bins will be useful in the hustle and the bustle of the country’s capital and the initiative is a clever and practical idea, but unfortunately it is not without its flaws. The idea is to help ‘clean up’ the city (which is scattered daily with newspapers) and encourage recycling; however, the energy used to power the screens is likely to cause just as much damage to the environment. To fund the initiative, Renew stated that companies could sponsor or advertise on the bins. Complaints on the Guardian website show that people aren’t exactly thrilled by being subjected to more forms of advertising.

On a lighter note for us PRs and Marketers, the initiative gives us another dimension to work with and enlists a range of opportunities. Perhaps this could spread to bus stops? People aren’t likely to spend too long looking at a bin; a bus stop on the other-hand is a place which will have reach to a lot more people. It does pose one question; if people aren’t happy about the bins, are we damaging the reputations of ourselves and our clients by using them?

Only time will tell for the success of the bins and we look forward to seeing the opportunities which stem from this in the near future.