Monday, March 15, 2010

Campaign billboards versus campaign yard signs

The Desert Sun raises an interesting issue as Rancho Mirage city council candidates battle over which type of sign is more environmentally friendly and less blighting... the traditional yard sign or the giant highway billboard?

The issue arose when a council candidate issued a challenge for everyone to run environmentally clean campaigns and to not despoil the beauty of the city with election signs all across town. However, the challenged candidates were quick to point out hypocrisy as the candidate has paid $4,000 to put up a large billboard on a highway in a town where billboards are illegal except for a few remaining "grandfathered" signs.

Now, I must admit that having public rights-of-way overrun with campaign signs can be a bit annoying, but make no doubt about it: billboards are environmentally unfriendly. In fact, a typical highway-sized billboard is 672 sq. ft. and almost always the poster gets dumped in the land fill. Further, most billboards are lit at night, wasting energy and polluting the night sky.

1 comment:

  1. You make a great point about billboards being environmentally unfriendly... I never really thought about them wasting energy at night with the bright lights that they use... I do feel campaign yard signs were a bit more effective anyhow since they can be recycled and placed all over the city instead of just being in one place.

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