Prague - Internet, newspapers, TV, cinema. Ads created by ecology organizations and urging people to handle environment better are gradually replacing those reserved for new car models or fridges.
The last novelty is an ad promoting domestic waste sorting by earth-friendly Hnutí Duha (The Rainbow Movement) on Prague metro trains. There are small posters in the carriages on the longest of the underground lines, B.
"There are seventy adverts in the metro B line carriages for the whole of February. We expect our campaign to have impact on hundreds of thousands of people from Prague and other places," Mr Vojtěch Kotecký from the Rainbow Movement said.
The ads urge people to send an e-mail to their MPs asking for changes in waste management legislation making it easier to sort used paper, glass or plastic. It also offers advice on how to sort waste on its special web page (though exclusively in Czech).
Ads cost CZK 57,000
The Rainbow Movement paid 57,300 CZK for a month of advertisement campaign including printing costs.
"We were lucky to get it for a low commercial price," Mr Kotecký told Aktuálně.cz.
The total costs were covered by a grant from CEE Bankwatch Network, an international body working with the Rainbow Movement on promoting better waste recycling in the Czech Republic and in other countries.
"A large majority of Czech people think waste sorting is a correct idea. That's why we chose a campaign addressing big number of people: they will help us press for making waste sorting easy as well. The decision will be in the hands of MPs, and it is important for them to know what people actually think," Mr Kotecký said.
Price of rubbish collection almost double
The Environment Ministry is preparing an amendment to the law on waste management aimed at increasing the amount of the domestic waste recycled and not ending up on the dumps.
It prepares increase in charges for removal of rubbish bins to up to CZK 900 per year and for sorting biological waste, and increase in price for using waste dumps.
The Ministry says on average Czech person produces every year about 400 kilograms of waste, of which only one fifth gets recycled. The largest part ends up on the waste dumps.
"The Plan for managing waste, as approved by the government, stipulates 50 per cent waste recycling by 2010," Environment Minister Bursík said. "This would not be possible without fundamental change in legislation and without improving current systems of dealing with the waste," adds Bursík.
Oscar-winning actor helps campaign
The Rainbow Movement "tried out" the eco-advertisement before.
At the beginning of 2006, Czech regional newspapers carried ads recommending energy generated by the wind.
The ads were published in nine regions about to decide on whether to build wind-farms, and with population not much in favour of this way of producing electricity.
Probably the most famous "pure nature" ad was made by the British branch of Greenpeace movement.
In the short film the extra-terrestrials evaluate the Earth as a planet with no future and ready to be annihilated since its inhabitants are about to destroy it anyway.
One of the actors in the movie that was shown on Czech TV several times was Jim Broadbent who won an Oscar for the film Iris.
Before that, in 2002, Czech Television carried an advert by the environmental organization Green Circle about sixty times.
