In the first seven months of 2010, the outdoor advertising industry recycled 1.56 million pounds of the PE (polyethylene) substrate on which billboards are printed. This represents a better than 100 percent increase over recycling in 2009, the first year in which the industry engaged in a coordinated recycling program.
“This is important to our advertisers, to our companies, and to the environment,” said Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) president and CEO Nancy Fletcher. “It’s another way the outdoor advertising industry is showing itself to be the future’s medium.” More than 70 percent of all poster size billboards in the United States now use recyclable substrates. The industry’s recycling program officially began in March, 2009.