I think that these World Wildlife Campaign posters are incredibly effective -- they depict a giant, skyscraper-sized used paint-can as the mouth of a river (one in the countryside, the other in Sydney Tokyo), with the legend "A single tin of paint can pollute millions of litres of water." Link (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

  • DonCarl

    If they really wanted a dramatic presentation, they would have used the river in Chicago, when it is dyed GREEN for St Patrick’s day…

  • coldspell

    #25: I agree the World Wildlife Fund should get a new name, but legally they don’t have to.. after suing the World Wrestling Federation and all. I’m sure that lawsuit was a great use of money people had donated.

    And then the World Wildlife Fund changed their name anyways: World Wide Fund for Nature. Not that the new name clears up anything..

  • silpol

    I wonder how it looks against Sony’s “splash all colors” now :)

  • woolie

    It’s Tokyo. The image is flipped horizontally. Here is a google maps link to the area shown:

    http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=tokyo&ie=UTF8&ll=35.683235,139.791884&spn=0.03329,0.046091&t=k&z=15&om=1

  • rrsafety

    The wrestling WWF changed its name to WWE because of a lawsuit from the World Wildlife Fund.

  • Dave X

    Awesome. Now I know it’s Tokyo. Thanks, RRSafety!

  • kittyw

    Great images, but that’s not Sydney…can’t help with where it actually is though.

    Kitty
    Sydney ;)

  • zuzu

    I’m not a fan of wrestling OR paint dumping, but the WWF should come up with a new name already.

    Michael Bolton: No way. Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.

  • DoppelFrog

    Seconding “that’s not Sydney”.

    -DoppelFrog
    (Soon-to-be-in-Sydney)

  • Welcome to Wallyworld

    How on earth could you mistake this river town for Sydney and its magnificent harbour?

  • robfargo

    Why stop at an accidental spill? Sherwin Williams seems to encourage you to intentionally dump a whole bucket and “Cover the Earth.”

    I ran a painting business in college and the Sherwin Williams logo (a paint bucket tipped over on the Earth) always unsettled me.

    Sherwin Williams Paint Logo
    http://www.nyfb.org/images/SherwinWilliams.jpg

  • alexanderwales

    Looks shopped to me. I can tell because of the pixels, and having seen quite a few shops in my time.

  • Dave X

    This is definitely not Sydney, if Google Earth is any help. Now I’m trying to figure out where this is. Anyone know?

  • Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

    AlexanderWales (5), I saw that.

  • rattlecan

    The image reminded me of the Sherwin Williams logo-
    A globe covered in red paint with the tagline “Cover the Earth”

    Interesting how they defend their logo on their websites green-initiative page.

    http://www.sherwin-williams.com/pro/green/initiatives/

  • jetsetsc

    So what should one do with old half empty paint cans? I plan to clean up the basement one of these days.
    -J

  • Jeff

    If they really wanted a dramatic presentation, they would have used the river in Chicago, when it is dyed GREEN for St Patrick’s day…

    The Chicago River is green every day – they just dye it a different shade of green for St Patrick’s Day.

  • Chris Fedde

    one tiny nit…. s/mouth/source/

    the mouth of a river is where it runs into the sea

  • pork musket

    @9 – Contact your waste disposal company. Most municipal trucks (at least in Colorado) will take a certain number of paint cans and used oil cans as well as car batteries and other things along with your normal trash service.

  • BubbleDragon

    In our municipality, paint cans have to be empty and lids off (to prove emptiness) before the garbage trucks will take it. No word on how it’s supposed to get empty – Guess I’ll just keep painting that fence with all the leftovers. ;o)

  • Jeff

    @9 – as @12 said, check with your local waste people. I’m in the western Chicago ‘burbs and there are several hazardous waste drop-off places around here.

    Even better is that our county (DuPage) runs a latex paint recycling center every summer. They run a site where you can drop off old latex paint. The kids they employ strain & mix any good paint and put it into 5 gallon buckets. It’s then available for anyone to pickup – I used a nice grey for my garage and a really decent flat white was used as an undercoat when I repainted a lot of our current home.

    I’m actually in the process of moving right now (relocating for wife’s job) so I’ve had to get rid of several almost empty cans (colors that aren’t in the house anymore).

    Since it’s winter and the recycling operation isn’t running, I’ve been drying the paint (dried paint can go in landfills, it can’t pollute groundwater). I’ve taken an old plastic storage container and poured the paint into it – as the surface dries I skim it off onto a piece of cardboard. When I get a big pile of dried paint, it goes out with the trash. It takes a while, but it’s doable if you have time.

    There are also paint hardening additives specifically for waste paint (at most hardware stores) but they only really work well if you don’t have too much paint to do.

  • Kevin Tieskoetter

    Actually, Bubbledragon, that’s not a bad idea. Many dumps will dispose of old paint by coating an old piece of lumber with layer after layer of it. Once it’s dry, it’s not much of an issue.

    If your paint is latex-based, you can also just leave the lid off for a few weeks to dry everything out, assuming there’s not much left in the can.

  • Ethan

    If it’s latex paint, just take the lid off and let it dry out… then no worries about spillage. Last time I was at the paint store I noticed there’s now a powder you can get to speed up the latex solidifying (though that’s not really necessary–it will crud up pretty quickly on its own).

  • empirechick

    @21 – Definitely not Pittsburgh – that’s not our cityscape. Plus it’s WAY too big for the dahntahn ‘Burgh.

  • Bottlekid

    My town has two hazardous waste days per year. You bring your harzardous waste items to the high school, and they sort them out for proper disposal.

    This thread has made me think though, am I doing the wrong thing by cleaning out my brushes, rollers and pans in the sink? Maybe I should just let them dry out and then trash them? It’s expensive to have to buy new brushes for every job, but I think we should all do this if it will reduce the cancer risk for future generations.

  • Technical Writing Geek

    Forgive me for saying this, but this style of ad has been done before. Furthermore, it didn’t have much effect back then, and probably isn’t now. People need to be receptive to the message before it’s going to take any effect.

    You can’t just bludgeon them with emotion and induce them to care about something they don’t. Yep, it’s one of the downsides of freedom. I wonder if humanity will get it together before we wreck our environment? Practical answer: “probably not.”

    We’re also awash in such emotional calls to action. Lost kids, charities, jailed terrorists, etc. The population is overdosed on this stuff and it’s not working.

  • Beanolini

    This campaign won several awards earlier this year. The ‘countryside’ picture mentioned in the post reads ‘a single can of dissolvent pollute millions of litres of water’ (sic), and there’s a third one, reading ‘one single litre of gasoline can pollute millions of litres of water’.

    All three can be seen here.

    No idea what city it is though, I’d be interested if anyone knows… the ad agency that created it is Spanish- is it somewhere in Spain?

  • Dave X

    It kinda looks like Pittsburgh, but far more built-up. The three bridges can’t be all that common. My guess is that this is a constructed place, with chunks of different cities.

  • Maurice Reeves

    #17 Bottlekid – Good question, and I was wondering that as well. What’s the proper way to handle that? I mean, pushing it into the sewer line takes it to the treatment plant, but maybe they’re not set up to handle those types of chemicals, but I’m just as loathe to throw all of that stuff into the garbage, as it just seems wasteful, and I’m just shifting the chemical waste to a different location…

  • jprague

    Extremely proactive imagery. Kudos to whatever designer dreamt this up really tied up images and transferred it into art with a message.

    Check this link with a great article on planet earth imagery

    http://24-7designheaven.com/24-7dh/2007/12/globe-in-hands-squish-eaaaaugg.php#more

  • zuzu

    Are we talking about lead paint or latex paint? Anyone care to enlighten me as to what is in latex paint that will wreak havoc on the environment?

  • Tenlow

    I’m still bothered by the fact that WWF has something to do with the environment. I read the title and thought “why do pro wrestlers have anything to say about paint dumping?”

    I’m not a fan of wrestling OR paint dumping, but the WWF should come up with a new name already.