Keep America Beautiful
Amid noticeable and documented improvements in the cleanliness of our neighborhoods, one crisis persists: the preponderance of litter and dog waste on city sidewalks. The New York City Department of Sanitation, in collaboration with the Partnership for New York City, launched a substantial marketing campaign to shame these “garbage” New Yorkers – litterers and dog-poopetrators – once and for all. This is the first major anti-littering campaign by DSNY in at least 15 years.
“New Yorkers have had enough of litter, enough of filth on our sidewalks, and enough of feeling like there’s nothing they can do about it,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “This administration has committed to ‘Get Stuff Clean,’ and our strategy is working, but we need everyone to do their part, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
“Since the start of this administration, Mayor Adams has unleashed a tidal wave of cleanliness on our City, and the crest of this wave is finally hitting our streets – yet some people continue to fail in their basic duty to keep our neighborhoods clean by littering or not cleaning up after their dog. I don’t know why they do it, and frankly, I don’t care why they do it. All I know is, if I see someone littering, I’ll tell them where to stick it,” said Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation.
“If we want a clean city, every New Yorker needs to do their part,” said Kathryn Wylde, president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for New York City. “The Department of Sanitation has upped their game, but they need our help! We’re asking New Yorkers to get engaged in the future of our city at welovenyc.nyc.”
WE❤NYC is a citywide initiative to mobilize New Yorkers to come together to inspire civic action. Showcasing how New Yorkers can do their part when it comes to litter, the Partnership for New York City is supporting this important initiative via its donated media and other means.
This ad campaign, designed pro bono in a collaboration between award-winning creative agency VMLY&R and the Department of Sanitation, is intended to enlist all New Yorkers in the work of calling out the offensive behavior that continues to disrupt the cleanliness of our streets. They appeared on bus shelters and Link NYC kiosks across the five burroughs through April.
This ad campaign comes at a time of great strategic realignment for DSNY around the core mission of cleanliness. DSNY is now cleaning more than 1,500 long-ignored areas across the city, cracking down on the scourge of illegal dumping, and striving for clean and accessible streets by substantially, changing the hours at which trash are set out – and how it is collected.