Air pollution in the UK leads to 40,000 premature deaths each year. It’s been declared a public health emergency. The British Lung Foundation, the UK’s leading lung health charity, wanted to highlight the issue and lobby government to improve air pollution laws.

We tackled it the way Banksy would. We fought pollution with pollution.

By printing the legal text of the 1956 Clean Air Act in transparent adhesive and placing these posters along London’s most polluted roads, fine particulate pollution in the air clung to it, making its text legible and clearly demonstrating how outdated and ineffective the law has become.

In one hit, the posters showed passers-by and MPs why a new law is desperately needed.

We printed the text of the 1956 Clean Air Act in transparent adhesive and placed these posters on some of London’s most polluted roads. At first, they appeared blank, but soon fine particulate pollution in the air clung to the adhesive, making the Clean Air Act text legible and clearly demonstrating how outdated and ineffective this law has become.

The call-to-action encouraged passers-by to pressure MPs to pass new laws that would meet World Health Organisation standards.

The posters were created using a new printing technique. A page from the Clean Air Act of 1956 was silk-screened using a specially-developed transparent adhesive ink that remained tacky almost indefinitely, allowing fine particles in the atmosphere to attach to the tiny lettering to reveal the ineffective legislation.

The posters made the invisible visible, getting people on the street to see what they’ve been breathing, and gave them something to target – replacing the current law – in order to improve the situation.

At the time of submission, it has just been announced that a new Environment Bill, including more comprehensive modern clean air legislation, is due to be passed through parliament later this year.