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Put It In The Blue Bin

Vehicle Recycling Signs

Case Study

Project Context

Client

City of Durham | Solid Waste Management Department

(now part of the Environmental & Street Services Dept.)

Client Ask

The client asked for its version of the typical large-format recycling sign: a green-dominant color palette, rows of photorealistic item illustrations, and the three-arrow recycling triangle logo.

Client Objective

Create effective, large-format, vehicle-based recycling signage that helps residents put more accepted materials and fewer hazardous or non-recyclable items in the blue bin.

(Priority hazards included TVs, computers, monitors, and car batteries. When compacted, these items could damage trucks, injure drivers, and slow pickups by requiring drivers to stop for on-the-spot sorting. Other non-hazardous but non-recyclable items required additional sorting at recycling facilities, increasing costs and pulling staff away from higher-value services for residents.)

Additional Problem I Identified
Beyond contamination and sorting costs, I identified a communication problem the original brief did not address: residents had learned to ignore the familiar visual conventions of recycling messaging before absorbing what the signs said.

Insight

Thirty Years of Sameness
The green dominant, photorealistic item illustrations recycling grid has dominated for decades. People thin-slice judge it instantly. It feels generic, offers no novelty, and gets ignored.

Glance-Speed Mismatch

From a home or a moving vehicle, viewers get roughly 3–5 seconds at 30-65ft to take in the message. Dense poster grids and photorealistic micro-details don’t resolve at that distance and speed, so the first glance doesn’t convert into comprehension.

All Work, No Reward

The traditional recycling signage is packed with tons of items and micro-details. People do a quick scan and bail. It looks like too much effort with no payoff, so they don’t try to read it.

(Exception: Traditional recycling signage can be useful in a very specific use case— when someone is standing at a recycling bin with an item in hand, uncertain whether it belongs there, and the signage is static and attached to the bin.)

Strategy

Pattern Break - Look nothing like legacy recycling messaging

Move: Eliminate green and the recycling triangle, the category’s two most familiar conventions, and replace them with City blues, reds, and gold.

Replace photorealistic item grids with oversized faux-product illustrations, and set the oversized category word in distinctive typography— both inspired by 1970s visual styles.

Civic Signal - Make The Source Feel Trustworthy Instantly

Move: Use the official City palette and its tints and shades so “this is from the City of Durham” lands before anyone reads a word.

Glanceability - Deliver the message in motion
Move: Show only the six or seven most common items in each recycling category instead of attempting to depict every possible item. Pair that restraint with minimal copy, disciplined hierarchy, and generous negative space for a moving-truck, drive-by view. Apply the 10-to-1 Legibility Rule so all text and recyclable silhouettes read cleanly from 30–65 feet.

The Bull as Anchor - Durham’s shared mascot

Move: Feature the Bull across the faux products as a recurring local cue because all Durham residents love the Bull. This makes the signs feel like Durham in a single glance.

Joyful Reward - Close-up payoff that earns repeat looks

Move: Build faux-product labels as playful micro-stories — bull puns, Durham locations, and community “insider” knowledge — so the compliance messaging rewards closer looks with a quick laugh.

Examples:

1869 Ketchup - city founding date as a brand gag

Doctor Durm Cola - Dr. B.S. Durham reference + “Durm” local pronunciation of Durham

Eno River Bottling Co. - local popular location name credibility

Raging Bull Baked Beans / Hoofenstein Crunch - bull-as-pop-culture label jokes

Major’s Fresh Stomped OJ - hoofprint orange + iconic Major the Bull sculpture

Equity-Efficient Bilingual - Serve two audiences without two SKUs
Move: Place Spanish-lite “captions” directly beneath the primary English instructions in smaller, lighter type on the same layout. Illustration labels remain English-only.

Language-Agnostic Comprehension - Understanding shouldn’t depend on reading

Move: Choose items with distinct silhouettes — bottle, can, carton, and jug — and simple pictorial label art so the items remain identifiable through visuals alone. The labels are decorative; meaning is conveyed by shape and picture.

Contrast-First Accessibility - Remain Legible In Sun, Shade, And Motion
Move: Apply WCAG 2.1 AA contrast minimums, at least 4.5:1 for small text and 3:1 for large text, as an ADA-aligned best practice for physical signs.

Multi-Scale Ready - Street to kitchen without redesign

Move: Use vector artwork, high-contrast forms, and disciplined hierarchy so the truck-side panels downscale cleanly into larger-than-average refrigerator magnets.

Why This Works

Tell people what’s accepted = less contamination. (EPA REO)
U.S. EPA Recycling Education and Outreach research supports clear guidance about accepted materials.

Clear “decision labels” cut confusion.

Bin-label research demonstrates the mechanism; the vehicle signs use the same behavioral lever. (The Recycling Partnership)

Simple, targeted guidance improves capture and reduces contamination. (WRAP)

Targeted reminders reduce recycling contamination.

Communities that used cart tags and mailings reduced recycling contamination by approximately 19–62%. In Atlanta, routes that received cart tagging and education showed a 19% decrease in contamination compared with routes that had not yet received the campaign. Vehicle signs are a different channel, but both approaches repeatedly reinforce what belongs—and does not belong—in the recycling bin. (Oregon DEQ study; The Recycling Partnership’s Atlanta results)

(Sources: U.S. EPA Recycling Education and Outreach; The Recycling Partnership bin-label research and Atlanta Feet on the Street results; WRAP recycling-communications guidance; and Oregon DEQ’s 2024 Cost-Effective Contamination Reduction Methods.)

Build & Rollout

Scale

32 recycling trucks with two signs per truck—one per side—for 64 total signs.

4 Designs

Metal, Paper, Plastic, Glass

Pairings
Glass and Plastic appeared on the same trucks. Metal and Paper appeared on the same trucks.

Material

Waterproof, highly UV-resistant vinyl with a designed lifespan of three to five years, including exposure to truck washing.

Bilingual Proofing

I collaborated with the City Communications team on Spanish-language proofing.

At-home Extension

Refrigerator magnets were designed but not produced.

My Role

Strategy

Strategy + Creative Direction + Hand-Drawn Illustration + Design + Production (Print-Ready Files + Vendor Coordination) + Client Leadership (Pitch + Reviews)

TL;DR

Client

City of Durham | Solid Waste Management Department

(now part of the Environmental & Street Services Dept.)

Client Ask

Create large-format truck signage in the typical recycling style (green palette, triangle logo, photorealistic item grids) to shift resident recycling behavior and cut blue bin contamination especially hazardous mis-loads.

What I Did
I identified a hidden challenge behind the client ask— residents had learned to ignore the visual conventions of recycling communication.

I reframed the ask into a City of Durham-branded, joy-filled, bilingual system that breaks through the “I’ve seen this before” response, delivers its message in 3–5 seconds, and gives residents memorable visual cues they can recall later when deciding whether to recycle.

My Role

Strategy + Creative Direction + Hand-Drawn Illustration + Design + Production (Print-Ready Files + Vendor Coordination) + Client Leadership (Pitch + Reviews)

Put It In The Blue Bin

Vehicle Recycling Signs

Case Study

Project Context

Client

City of Durham | Solid Waste Management Department

(now part of the Environmental & Street Services Dept.)

Client Ask

The client asked for its version of the typical large-format recycling sign: a green-dominant color palette, rows of photorealistic item illustrations, and the three-arrow recycling triangle logo.

Client Objective

Create effective, large-format, vehicle-based recycling signage that helps residents put more accepted materials and fewer hazardous or non-recyclable items in the blue bin.