MANILA – Following its award-winning clean air campaign for Boysen KNOxOUT, TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno has created another beautification and cleanliness project, this time for beauty brand Shokubutsu Hana and the biologically dead Pasig River.
Via an 88.5-foot-long floating billboard made of Vetiver, the agency delivers a promising message: CLEAN RIVER SOON. Vetiver plants (Chrysopogon zizanioides), a non-invasive grass, is used to treat wastewater because of its ability to absorb toxic materials.
The floating billboard at Estero San Miguel in Sampaloc, Manila aims to reduce pollution in the 25-kilometer river, which connects Laguna de Bay to Manila Bay.
Declared biologically dead in 1990, the Pasig River is still treated as a dumping ground by many, even as several groups continue their efforts to rehabilitate the waterway. Such efforts include mangrove planting and the “Adopt-an-Estero project” from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC).
According to the brand, the message is also a warning for people to think twice before throwing rubbish into the water. It also said that research showed that such a system can clean two to eight thousand gallons of water daily.
Mounted in February, the billboard was the result of the combined efforts of Shokubutsu Hana, The Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, Vetiver Farms Philippines and TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno.
In 2012, TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno was proclaimed the Disruption Awards Grand Prix winner for its Boysen KNOxOUT Project EDSA: Clean Air Campaign. International artists participated in the project, painting murals on an 8km stretch of highway. Using air-purifying paint, the murals have the effect of 8,000 trees, filtering nitrogen oxide out of the air.
