SacGreenTeam “Binfluencers” | Environmental Branding Campaign

The Challenge — Making Waste Behavior Change Engaging

Sacramento County’s SacGreenTeam needed a fresh approach to help residents recycle correctly and reduce contamination. Sorting organics, recyclables, and bulky waste can feel confusing, especially for younger audiences. The goal was to develop an environmental branding campaign that made responsible disposal feel fun, modern, and memorable.

The Concept — Meet the “Bin fluencers”

Inspired by Captain Planet’s influence on my generation, I created an illustrated team of eco-heroes called The Binfluencers—each character representing a specific waste stream. Designed in bold, primary-color vector style, these friendly personalities encouraged residents to model better recycling habits and “record the moment” with pride.

And using the fun visual language of color-coded illustrations made them universal in a way that really helped when translating their message across the myriad languages present in the Sacramento area. From Spanish to Tagalog, these simple characters reached across cultural differences and really reached people. We used local language translation and education service Language World to help make these characters resonate with an international flavor…

The above scenes were animated by Sacramento’s Noble Creative Collective, who also valiantly handled post on the full spot, seen below…

In fact, they really added something to even the most utilitarian spots on municipal waste and I think that spark of life is really what helped move the needle in some pretty substantial ways for the client.

Resulting in…