NGO warns men their nuts may contain traces of plastic

Danish NGO Plastic Change is marking World Environment Day with its most provocative work yet, a microplastics campaign built on one uncomfortable idea: the plastic polluting the planet is now showing up in men’s testicles.

Created by independent agency Worth Your While, These Nuts May Contain Traces of Plastic takes the familiar “may contain traces of nuts” food disclaimer and twists it into an NSFW health warning.

The out-of-home executions, with hyper-real imagery from studio We Are Eli, style close-ups of testicle skin as product packaging, complete with nutrition-style labels listing microplastics as an “ingredient” and side effects from infertility to hormone disruption.

The thinking leans on a behavioural insight that many men disengage from environmental messaging, reframing a distant global crisis as something personal.

Henrik Beha Pedersen, founder of Plastic Change, said: “We know that tiny plastic particles are invading our bodies. No one protects us from the health consequences. Plastic is not regulated by law. It’s a disgrace. We need a plastic change. Otherwise we walk on towards an unknown future.”

Tim Pashen, creative director and partner at Worth Your While, added: “Environmental campaigns often struggle because the consequences feel distant, abstract or someone else’s problem. We wanted to find a way to make the issue impossible to ignore by connecting it to something deeply personal. If microplastics are showing up in places as intimate as testicular tissue, then plastic pollution is no longer just an environmental issue, it’s a human issue.”

The campaign rolls out across OOH, social, PR and earned media from 5 June.