Campaign sign placed to attract motorists’ attention
© Janine Boylan

What’s the Life Cycle of a Campaign Sign?

From Planting to Harvest

Just a week ago, when election season was in full swing, brightly colored campaign signs were sprouting hourly along the roadside. By election day, competing candidates’ signs were jostling for each nourishing ray of motorists’ attention.

Then, suddenly, the morning after the election, nearly all the signs had been plucked away. The freeway fields were bare again.

It made me wonder: what is the life cycle of a campaign sign?

The planting season for campaign signs varies, but in California, where I live, there are rules:

• It is safe to set signs in the ground no earlier than 90 days prior to an election.
• They may not be in the right-of-way of any highway.
• Signs have to be maintained by a responsible party who agrees to harvest them within ten days of the election.

So, if you venture out before sunrise on the morning after the election, you may see candidates and their teams out picking signs. “You’ve got to be a responsible citizen and get all the signs you put out, and even some that you didn’t,” Phil Salzer, elected to the Peoria County Board, explained.

One candidate, John Pierre Menvielle, had carefully marked each of his sign placements on a map, and, knowing where they all were, he was able to gather 400 of his signs in one day. Some candidates even make agreements to pick up one another’s signs to make the task a little easier.

Seeds for the Next Stage

Then what’s next in the life cycle of a campaign sign? It may become the seed for a clever use in its next stage:

• Some signs are considered collectibles. People think of political signs as historical mementoes, so they tuck them away as souvenirs.
• Some signs get replanted next election season. “We try to gather them up and clean them so we can use them in other elections,” campaign manager Dan Pelphrey said. He explained that if candidates don’t go for reelection, they might give the wire stakes to other candidates to use for their signs. (Stakes can cost from around $.25 to $1 each.)
• A few signs get recycled. While many recycling centers do not accept political signs because of the various materials they are made of, some centers do collect and recycle them. So this year’s campaign sign may be one ingredient in the next generation of campaign signs.

Bike sporting parts from recycled campaign signs
© Kent Peterson

Wheel Out a Very Clever Use!

Kent Peterson of Puget Sound, Washington, has a very clever use for the pulled-up signs: he carves them into bike accessories. In the photo above, the saddlebag on the back is made from a repurposed sign.

Look closely at the front and back fenders—they were once signs as well. Brilliant: using mud-slinging politicians’ signs to keep the mud from slinging onto my clothes!

Oh, I see the full life cycle of a campaign sign from planting to the consumer!

Do you know of other good uses for old campaign signs? Leave a comment.

VIA Journal Star and Imperial Valley Press

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