Modern day lifestyles, fast food, fast everything and apparently no time to stop and do the right thing. Littering is no exception. In fact, the scourge of most modern cities, it continues to be a problem that refuses to go away (pardon the pun…it’s in there somewhere). Even with multiple public awareness campaigns (think the “Don’t be a Tosser” campaign in Australia) and improvements in product packaging, messaging and the recycling movement, people still toss their litter rather than dispose of it properly.

But CSI technology could be about to change all that.

In a recent campaign created by Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong, as part of the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s annual clean up challenge, they revealed some of the contributors to the city’s litter epidemic. Using Parabon’s Snapshot™ DNA Phenotyping Service they took samples of litter from across the city and analysed the DNA from minute samples to predict physical characteristics including skin pigmentation, eye and hair colour, face morphology, sex, and genomic ancestry. Armed with this information, poster portraits of the perpetrators were placed across the city, as well as online.

Although Snapshot was originally developed as a forensic tool to help generate investigative leads and identify unknown remains for law enforcement communities, the Ogilvy team is using the service to generate composites of otherwise anonymous litterers as a powerful medium for raising environmental awareness. Putting a face to this anonymous crime will hopefully get people to think twice about tossing their litter and encourage them to dispose of it more thoughtfully.

So the next time you toss out your capuccino cup or Big Mac wrapper make sure you hit the bin. Otherwise you could see your face up in lights. Probably not the 15 minutes of fame you were dreaming of.