In November 2017 I got involved with a campaign in Portugal fighting against pollution in the Tejo River by the paper industry who denied their responsibility. Government stayed on the side of industry, by pretending that no pollution was taking place, even when evidence was clear for all to see.

Moving people into action in Portugal is a mammoth effort even when their environment and water is under siege. There aren’t enough civic groups and traditions in this respect. Despite this, people are frustrated and resort to what they always have done..: moan about it in the local pub (café).

Nevertheless, there are some movements changing this behaviour by channeling the frustration towards action and positive change. Pro-Tejo is one of them along side Arlindo Consolado Marques who has been remarkable throughout.

I came across this campaign online and immediately got involved. Cutting a long story short, i did what appeared to be more productive, ie, to produce flyers for dissemination on social networks.

Design wise they are a bit ‘guerrilla” but they had a very positive effect on the campaign, increasing sharing many times over the usual posts. The viral capacity was much greater then other average posts. For instances, most posts would be shared by 5-10 users, while the flyers were shared up to 298 times.

There was undoubtedly an increase of exposure and awareness of the campaign. The campaign itself had a lot of success and the dumping of huge illegal amounts of toxic waste has for the main part, stopped.