Every election year in Brazil, illegal sandwich boards with political advertising invade the streets, polluting the city and disrupting mobility. When campaigns come to an end, tons of them are abandoned on the sidewalks.

In 2014, things weren't different. After the elections, people started to notice the problem and complain about the sandwich boards and campaign trash all over the Internet.

Mobilize Brasil, a non-profit initiative focused on sustainable urban mobility, asked us to use that buzz to generate awareness and set up a debate about urban mobility and pollution, drawing attention to Mobilize’s cause.

But we came up with an up-cycling idea with potential to do not only that but actually to mitigate the mobility and environmental impact of the illegal political advertising, by removing illegal sandwich boards that were hindering mobility and transforming them into Political Furniture, an open-source 100% recycled furniture collection. And by inviting the population to do the same, with easy step-by-step tutorials available online, for them to download and assemble their own Political Furniture.

With no media budget, the idea spread allover social networks, sustainability and design publications, and the news, from Folha de S.Paulo and UOL to Yahoo!News, France24 and AlJazeera, turning a national problem into an international debate.

We can’t establish how many people assembled Political Furniture, but we got thousands of visitors and tutorial downloads from more than 150 countries. Besides, a joinery shop spontaneously started to assemble Political Furniture, recycling more campaign trash and improving mobility.

First, we collected several illegally placed sandwich boards that were polluting the city and disrupting mobility. Then, we teamed up with a renowned Brazilian designer, to create an open-source 100% recycled furniture collection: coffee table, stool, coat rack, towel holder and side table.

With the collection all-set, we created a website containing the whole story, including photos and video of the process, plus easy step-by-step tutorials for people to download and assemble their own Political Furniture.

The Political Furniture website was launched, in both Portuguese and English, just as elections’ first round was over and the whole buzz around campaign trash emerged. At the same time, we sent the idea to a variety of blogs and publications about design, innovation, decoration, sustainability and to some traditional news publications that, at the time, had politics on their covers and homepages on a daily basis.

With no media budget, the idea quickly spread all over social networks, plus sustainability, innovation, design and decoration publications inside and outside Brazil, such as Catraca Livre, Good Magazine, PSFK, Collectively, Zupi, Caras and Westwing Magazine. And, then, all over the news, including Folha de S. Paulo (the biggest in circulation and most influential Brazilian newspaper), UOL (Brazil’s largest internet portal), CBN (the leader among Brazilian all-news radio stations), Yahoo! News (U.S.), France 24 and AlJazeera, turning a national problem into an international debate.

We can’t establish how many people assembled Political Furniture, but the website got thousands of visitors and tutorial downloads from more than 150 countries. Besides, a joinery shop spontaneously started to assemble Political Furniture, helping to recycle more campaign trash, improve mobility and, ultimately, helping Brazilian candidates to fulfill their noble purpose: serving the citizens of our country.