"CAN IT!" Litter Prevention Campaign

Litter is a problem in California. In Los Angeles, and other ocean-adjacent cities, litter is washed by rain into storm drains that flow directly into the ocean with no filtering system. Even on a dry day, enough water washes through the Los Angeles county storm drain system to fill the Rose Bowl Stadium in Anaheim. And that's on a dry day. Large nets set up in canals collect literally tons of trash after it rains.

To address the problem, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works hired Ogilvy PR to develop a public education campaign targeting LA County residents. Ogilvy developed the headline "CAN IT!" which is accompanied on outdoor boards with pictures of common litter: a fast food fry container; a soda cup; and the most commonly littered item, a cigarette butt.

Since the English in-your-face catch phrase "can it" does not translate well in Spanish, the Spanish creative features the headline, "¡MantenLA limpia!" which means "keep it clean." Capitalizing and emphasizing the last two letters in the Spanish word "mantenla" allows us to say "keep it clean, LA" in a clever way.

The campaign has led to a twenty-two ton reduction of litter in the City of Inglewood, a sixteen percent increase in calls to the county's toll-free pollution prevention hotline, and two hugely successful "clean-up days" in which 450 volunteers collected 19,000 pounds of trash.

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