“Primedia Outdoor prides itself on finding innovative ways to reuse and repurpose materials in order to reduce wastage in the OOH industry and affect positive change in the organisations and communities that we support,” says Jorja Wilkins, Executive: marketing and marketing services at Primedia Outdoor. “To date, we have donated just over 15,000m² of used billboard posters to be recycled, upcycled, and repurposed, contributing to our ongoing efforts towards sustainability.”
Furthermore, Primedia Outdoor also makes use of products and substrates that contain no PVC, are chlorine free and use 70% less emissions than PVC, resulting in a drastically reduced carbon footprint, namely:
- Fabric for interior billboards, lift banners and cubes.
- PP Paper for hanging banners which is light in weight and easy to install.
- PE for interior billboards.
- Graphit material used in taxi rank environments.
All LED inks used are GreenGuard and GreenGuard Gold certified, making them harmless to the environment and ideal for use in schools and hospitals.
These products are environmentally friendly in the following ways:
- Contain up to 50% naturally-derived monomers and oligomers derived from renewable resources such as plants or biomass.
- Contain virtually no volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
- Do not contain heavy metals such as antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium (VI), lead, mercury, and selenium.
- Do not contain greenhouse gases as defined by the European Commission and USEPA.
- Do not contain REACH Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) as determined by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and last updated on 17 December 2014.
- Are not considered hazardous waste under the U.S. waste regulations (RCRA).
Solar power to the people
Primedia Outdoor is known to produce pioneering solar-powered campaigns. One campaign saw Primedia install 870 street poles on seven key roads throughout Harare, Zimbabwe that light up the entire road. Completely solar-powered, the lights do not rely on local electricity suppliers, thus assisting the city council by alleviating the burden of lighting the city streets.
Primedia Outdoor also installed self-contained solar technology onto 204 double-sided directional signs in various residential and business centres in and around Windhoek, Namibia. This installation allows for uninterrupted internal illumination, ensuring the advertisers’ message is always visible. The solar system is designed for extreme weather and environmental conditions, delivering 1,000 lumens, nine hours illumination and three days battery stand-by. Having retained the advertising contract in September 2018, the new solar powered Adlites are environmentally friendly as they do not use electricity but only solar energy panels that are affixed to the top of the structure.
Recycling and educational programmes
Use-It, KwaZulu-Natal works on a glass recycling project relating to innovation in solid waste management that incorporates local economic stimulation and job creation. This programme seeks to mobilise people in all communities (rural, semi-urban and urban) to understand and promote the diversion of waste from landfill and to minimise environmental degradation. Primedia Outdoor’s waste flex is used to manufacture “glass bags”. Waste pickers currently collect glass in bulk sugar bags (1ton), which creates a logistic backlog as a crane truck is needed to lift these bags for transport to the various application sites, i.e. recycling/beneficiation. Reducing the size of the bag to a 500kg bag allows the bags to be loaded onto smaller vehicles for transport to the processing destination, thus reducing the turnaround time.
These bags are manufactured by a female-owned SMME in Primedia Outdoor’s incubation programme at the Hammarsdale site, currently employing five people and supplying 50 waste pickers with these bags while services the collection of the glass weekly.
Go Grow! Educational Gardening Game utilises billboard material from Primedia Outdoor to build double-layer tilapia fish ponds. In addition, they also had huge success growing pumpkins by using the material as a composing worm farm which fertilised pumpkins.
Eco Smart Group, a company that upskills, mentors and offers entrepreneurial support to disadvantaged women who do not have direct access to market opportunities, manages projects in the textiles industry using recovered waste plastic and South African fabrics and trims – one such project utilises recycling of Primedia Outdoor’s flex faces as lining inside sewed bags.
“Not only have the communities benefited from direct job creation through opening their own businesses and the economic impact of that, they have also benefited by bringing specific causes to our attention that we assist with, these include internship positions for non-sewers, feeding schemes, disaster relief food parcels, mentorship, supplier negotiations and cash flow assistance,” says Lise Kuhle, head of Eco Smart Group. “Our door is always open to someone who is proactive and hardworking and wants to make their situation better and by providing necessary training, capital, mentoring and/or practical business advice we can give that person a really good leg up.”
About Primedia Outdoor
Primedia Outdoor is the premier provider of out of home media solutions within Sub Saharan Africa. A Level 1 BBEEE contributor, Primedia Outdoor is currently the largest wholly South-African-owned outdoor advertising media specialist offering national outdoor exposure throughout South Africa and high reach in key markets in rest of Africa. Primedia Outdoor offers flexible coverage of the entire LSM/SEM spectrum, targeting cosmopolitan consumers in major urban areas through to those living in rural communities.
Primedia Outdoor delivers exposure across a mix of media opportunities and audience environments, including high-end digital signs, airport advertising, freeway and suburban spectaculars and street furniture, as well as static advertising and digital screens in malls. Since 2018, the Primedia Unlimited Malls business unit has been integrated into the Primedia Outdoor stable. With the integration, Primedia Outdoor’s total media offering makes major retail and brand platforms accessible to advertisers, offering media solutions that integrate shopper connections during the path to purchase journey.
