Recycling has become a worldwide campaign over the past decade, with many A-list celebrities backing efforts to raise awareness and save the planet from global warming. Without this advertising, promotion and general public awareness recycling campaigns would collapse, but what we want to know is why, if so many celebrities are involved, isn’t the entire population on board? Are the wrong celebrities being used to promote recycling, and if so, which ones should be used?
Good ol’ one-of-us HF-W.
One thing we’re sure of is that the celebrities that are used to for recycling campaigns should not just stand behind it as a pretty, corporate face. We’re talking about getting their hands dirty and showing that they play a part in recycling. Take Hayden Panettiere for instance; rather than getting made up and doing a ‘green’ photo shoot, she implemented recycling in her daily lifestyle and let the Paps snap away while she shopped with reusable bags.
Saying that, some celebs are larger than life and those like Paris Hilton just don’t ‘do’ everyday mundaneness. With these personalities is needs to be about context; catering to the fans and anticipating what they’re likely to take note of. Miley Cyrus’ eco-friendly clothes line, for instance, appeals directly to her fan base whilst getting them to listen up about important world issues. If she were to bring out a range of Hannah Montana compost bins the success of her campaign would probably be very different.
Celebrities like Irish gardener Diarmuid Gavin and British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are experts in the area of green living and it’s essential to have these people involved in recycling campaigns as a point of reference. They might not be as internationally recognised as Gwyneth Paltrow or America Ferrera, but the quality of information and advice they give is indispensable.
This works.
But what about the psychology behind how the public views certain celebrities? We all know how much airbrushing goes on in magazines, extreme celebrity diets and the plastic surgery some have to keep up with beauty standards, and we all know how unobtainable those things are for ‘normal’ people. Seeing staggeringly beautiful celebs like Eva Longoria, Cameron Diaz and George Clooney on recycling campaigns might make people subconsciously think it’s a goal out of reach. These celebrities can easily afford to buy recycling facilities, and the space to keep their recycled materials, but does the general public think they can do it too? Our instincts say not until a more down-to-earth celebrity is thrown into the mix, like Jamie Oliver who details in his TV programmes how he does it, what effects his efforts have and how they don’t need to be diamond encrusted to work.
This, sadly, doesn’t.
A mixture of celebrities are needed to bring attention to certain recycling campaigns. A listers get awareness internationally, while the experts are there to inform the public who get really interested in the subject. A to C list celebrities who use recycling methods in their day to day life, but aren’t afraid to flaunt it are just as important too, to keep recycling efforts ‘accessible’ to the public, and to be a subtle reminder of how this is what we should be doing. What’s causing the lag in people taking up recycling, we don’t know, but perhaps an all-out international recycling campaign led by one organization, featuring all calibre of celebrities (from Angelina Jolie to Christine Walkden) and broadcast on TV, in newspapers, on the radio and through public events, would do the job.
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I think you have made an important point of how influential celebrities are on public opinion and the increasing number of celebrities involved with helping the environment is becoming more promising but it does raise the question if this is the case they why aren’t more of the public involved? I think some of this is down the fact that the public have become more aware of celebrities and that not everything they do is because they are passionate about it but are doing to create an image for themselves!