Uncommon Draws Attention to Government Policies on UK Water Pollution with Provocative Outdoor

Last year, sewage spills into UK rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled. According to the Environment Agency, there were 3.6 million hours of spills, compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022. This is a problem that isn’t getting better.

In the run up to the UK election, Uncommon created a powerful visual designed in the style of a quintessential seaside postcard depicting a figure in a hazmat suit dropping an environmental testing flag into the top of a child’s sandcastle. The image aims to show how our beaches have become a hazard since this spike in raw sewage dumping.

The visual is running across the UK in outdoor sites across coastal locations such as Brighton, Margate and Cornwall, including areas where people are most affected most by the quality of their water.

Some outdoor sites have been situated specifically in places where local MP’s voted in favour of allowing water companies to continue to dump raw sewage into their surrounding waters such as Suffolk, Newquay and North Thanet in Margate.

Uncommon Creative Studio recently launched another politically charged billboard in response to Rishi Sunak’s D-Day disaster. The powerful message simply read “He left them on the beaches. Lest we forget, come July 4.” Accompanied by a visual of a silhouette of a male figure in a suit running away. It mirrored — the current Prime Minister of the UK — Rishi Sunak’s actions on 7th June when he was heavily criticised for skipping the 80th anniversary D-Day ceremony in Normandy to travel back to the UK to record a TV interview — 24 other world leaders stayed to attend the ceremony.

The image was shared thousands of times across X, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and LinkedIn — gathering millions of views with the likes of politically charged British TV personality Carol Vorderman sharing the image with a reply 'He did'. And others claiming: “if this isn’t an official @UKLabour poster it fucking well should be.”

Uncommon found real outdoor sites to run this message across London.