Orange bag case study
Client: Propreté.brussels / Net.brussels
Campaign to mobilise and persuade the inhabitants of the 19 Brussels districts to sort more of their organic waste.
Background
Since 2017, the Brussels Capital Region has been offering its citizens a new orange bag for food waste. Two years later, it has to be said that very few people in Brussels are actually using this new bag. The problem is that the approach is voluntary and not compulsory, and some people only see its disadvantages for their daily lives.
Mission
Motivating and persuading the inhabitants of the 19 districts to sort more of their organic waste was the mission entrusted to VO Citizen in this campaign, called #sacorange. The challenge for Bruxelles Propreté was to comply with the European directive which requires that, by 2020, 50% of household waste is recycled and recovered. We are therefore going beyond a traditional awareness-raising campaign - we need to take action, now and way into the future!
Response
- Inform
To counterbalance this subject, which is not very attractive to citizens, VO decided to build its campaign on an opposing view using the stroop effect - a twist from neuroscience. The poster, which carries a very simple message, piques the interest of its reader, who is looking for the mistake, and has the merit of making a lasting impression.
The website created for the campaign holds all the information related to the sorting and use of the bag. But not only that. It explains how this waste is re-used and how the bag contributes to a more global approach. Sorting organic waste is more of an act of good citizenship than a civic duty. And this is where VO Citizen brings all its added value to the table: working to change people’s behaviour by managing to talk to the citizens hiding behind the consumers, who are usually the ones being addressed.
- Convert
For the activity component, VO went out to meet the public in supermarkets and open markets with a stand offering free containers for the orange bag. By offering these to citizens, we are combining at least two of the faults generally cited against orange bags, namely the smell and the risk of having your rubbish bin pulled apart on the pavement by passing animals. And to reinforce the need to act, everyone was able to customise their container on site, in a 100% environmentally-friendly do it yourself workshop - because a citizen who has taken the time to personalise it is a citizen who has already made a commitment.
Result
To reach as broad a spectrum as possible of the Brussels public, the campaign was rolled out online and offline and was given a widespread presence on the streets of Brussels, on public transport and on the web (YouTube, social networks, etc.). Every radio station also broadcast the information ad. Bruxelles Propreté had a stock of 15,000 containers to dispose of. During the environmental festival in the Cinquantaine Park alone, more than 1000 containers were given new homes.