Reuse Your Billboards
Options for lowering your carbon footprint
By Amber Larkins, OOH Today
There are four ways to get rid of old Billboard vinyls:
1. You can take them to a landfill.
2. You can reduce the use of them by switching to digital formats.
3. You can recycle them by converting them into other materials.
4. You can reuse them.
Of these four options, the one with lowest carbon footprint is to reuse them. Landfills fill up and are unsightly. Switching to digital formats has other questionable impacts on the environment including light pollution, the materials used to make the screens, and the power used to light up the screens. Also, in the US there are just not that many areas where digital screens are allowed or available. The recycling process often involves the use of energy, processes and materials to convert vinyls into something new. This is the second lowest carbon footprint option. It includes companies like RareForm, which transforms old vinyls into totes, duffles, and accessory bags. We have asked OOH Companies what they do with their old, ‘dead’ materials, many of them say they send them to RareForm. A few of those companies told us confidentially, on occasion RareForm has refused delivery because they have more than than can use at the moment.
But wait, reuse them? You may be thinking, I have no use for this vinyl anymore. Who is going to be interested in an ad that is no longer relevant?
It’s not the ads that can be reused, but the vinyl itself. Vinyl can be used as painting tarps, pond and pool liners, floor savers from oil drops, farmers use them to cover hay or anything you can think of where waterproof vinyl might be needed. Oh and let’s not forget old vinyls make the best slip and slides!
RePurposed Materials describes itself as an industrial thrift store. Instead of paying a landfill to take your vinyls, you can sell them to companies like Repurposed Materials. They take the Billboards in as is. They don’t cut, modify, or transform them in any way. They then find buyers for the material.
“It’s no big secret they could sell [their vinyls] to a local farmer if they wanted to,” said Damon Carson, Repurposed Materials Founder and President.
In 2010, the company started their reuse business with Billboard vinyls. Since then they’ve branched off into many other castoffs and discards of American industries including firehoses from fire departments, wood lanes from bowling alleys, and conveyor belts from the mining industry.
Though only about 5% of their current business is Billboard vinyls, Carson estimates that over the 13 years that the company has been in operation that they have saved about 10,000 vinyls from landfills.
This sounds like a large number until you consider that in the United States today there are over 350,000 billboards, the vast majority are static, and multiple vinyls will likely run on a single piece of inventory in a given year. That’s potentially millions of billboard vinyls going to landfills each year.
They don’t have to go to landfills. There are other options available. Start using them and reusing them. We’d love to learn what you do with them. Contact me at BillBoard@OOHToday.com
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