Cool or creepy? China finds a way to shame people who pollute

 28 May, 2015

Pollution billboard (Courtesy of Snapshot)

Okay, this is either very cool or really creepy – and we want to know what you think.

The South China Morning Post reported last week that an innovative DNA technology – which can deduce the shape and appearance of a person’s face from a DNA sample – is being used to shame litterbugs in Hong Kong.

 The giant city is being inundated with literally thousands of tons cigarette butts, used coffee cups, discarded newspapers and other forms of casually tossed away and unsightly waste.

 So here’s what can happen now:

 You toss some garbage onto a Hong Kong Street.  It gets picked up, and tested for DNA.  An American company – Parabon Nanolabs – uses the DNA to create an approximate picture of your face.  Then giant marketing agency Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong puts your face on a billboard at the site of your littering offence as part of a shaming campaign called “The Face of Litter.”

A photo illustration of a man who littered. (Courtesy of Snapshot)

 But, to put it mildly, there are some ... inaccuracies. 

No matter how good this face-deduction process is or will become, your DNA has no idea how old you are.  Nor does it know how you wear your hair, or whether you have a mustache or beard.  If you happen to be bald-headed and in your late twenties, you might want to brush up on the locations of Hong Kong waste baskets.  Just about anybody else may continue to drop their trash in the streets with relative impunity.

“It was intended to provoke a conversation to create positive social change for the people of Hong Kong,” said Lisa Christensen, co-founder and CEO of the NGO Hong Kong Cleanup.  “The prospect of this idea alone, we hope, will be enough to make people think twice about littering”

 It’s an impressive show of technology,  but shaming polluters with a billboard is like something out of the legendary dystopian movie Blade Runner.  So, again, good idea, or bad?

On the plus side, littering is ugly, selfish and completely unnecessary.  It takes huge amounts of time, effort and money to clear it from the streets of a massive city like Hong Kong.

On the other side, let’s say your boss or a co-worker did or said something that really annoyed you.  You happen to see this person prudently and responsibly toss their morning coffee cup into the office recycling bin.  You put on rubber gloves, retrieve the cup, scoot outside and wing it down Main Street, anticipating the lovely laugh you’re going to have when your rival’s face is smeared on a “Face of Litter” poster across the street from your office.

Conviction and punishment, in other words, without the ‘guilty’ person committing a crime.

Even the guilty litterers here are being denied due process.  That may not be completely shocking, but this technology can easily spread around the globe.

Is using DNA to make posters that shame litterbugs a cool and appropriate step forward, or is it unfair, inaccurate for your particular taste? Tell us what you think in the comments below.