Rod: SBB campaign against littering launched

The more people are on the move, the higher the amount of waste that SBB has to deal with every day. Every day, more than 1,200 SBB employees dispose of more than 100 tons of waste, 20 tons of newspapers, half a ton of PET and tens of thousands of cigarette butts. A campaign prominently staged by Rod Kommunikation is now intended to help sensitize passengers to the issue of littering: Larger items of waste should be taken off the train and disposed of in the litter bin on the platform, and cigarette butts should be stubbed out in the ashtray instead of being thrown into the track bed.

With the campaign, SBB meets its customers with a heartfelt message instead of a reminder finger; "Thank you" is the motto on the advertising materials, which were created from real waste by artist Nora Fehr. In addition to posters, eBoards and ads for the commuter press, interactive measures were also used for the campaign. In Switzerland's largest train stations, for example, the message was communicated with trash cans that loudly and musically acknowledged when a passerby disposed of something in them.

The disposal of cigarette butts from the track bed is carried out under the greatest safety precautions and costs the SBB 3.5 million Swiss francs annually. A poster in Basel with a PR effect drew attention to this issue and invited passers-by to create the advertising medium with their cigarette. Simply by disposing of the cigarette butt on the adhesive surface of the poster instead of throwing it into the track bed.

Responsible at Swiss Federal Railways SBB: Jan-Hendrik Völker-Albert (overall responsibility), Michael Naef (project management), Christian Fricker, Marco Serratore. Production: Nora Fehr (installation), Julien Vonier (photography).