Through its Ads to Bags campaign, oil giant BP has handed over the first donation of pencil cases, chair bags and school backpacks recycled from its old vinyl advertising billboards to hundreds of grade R pupils at the Makhoroane Primary School, in Soweto.

BP retail head Renny Letswalo said in a statement that the campaign offered a free substitute to traditional, pricy school suitcases and other stationery, thereby enhancing the education of underprivileged children.

“Not only are the kids starting the new school year with colourful new equipment, but we are benefiting the environment by recycling this material,” she stated.

Letswalo added that the campaign also had a ripple effect in terms of job creation and skills development, as the Ekukhanyeni Community Development Centre was teaching previously unemployed women from across Gauteng to recycle the billboard material and produce the merchandise for the campaign supplier Black Brain.

In addition to Makhoroane Primary School, Sukuma Primary School, in Umlazi, Durban, and Injongo Primary School, in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, have also been identified to benefit from the Ads to Bags donation this year.

“We hope this will become an annual project and that we can reach even more than the 8 000 learners we will be reaching in 2013,” Letswalo enthused.

BP called for other companies to partner in the campaign and recycle their advertising material.