Dropping discarded cans or wrappers on the street is neither smart nor pretty, but one mom isn’t too happy with the antilittering campaign in her neighborhood that seemingly genders those traits.

The “Love Essex” campaign encourages those living in the county north of London to keep their streets pristine with two different pictures. One shows a woman with a tag stating that putting garbage in the trash is “a pretty quick thing to do.” (The emphasis is from the campaign.) Not only do some residents take issue with the ad’s grammar, but others were displeased that the men’s ad said putting trash in a bin was the “smart thing to do.”

“I was driving past the other day and I just thought to myself, ‘For goodness’ sake!’ ” Natalie Collins, a mom and self-proclaimed feminist, told Echo News. She’s started a petition to have the ads removed, calling them “sexist and derogatory.” The petition also notes that the campaign came from the local government. With the U.K.'s Equality Act of 2010, public entities are under a legal obligation to create ads that promote equality.

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“Women experience the issue of pretty-versus-smart all the time,” said Collins. “I have a 12-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son, and this is not a message I want them to see.”

Not everyone feels as strongly as she does. Some residents feel the term “smart” on the men’s campaign refers to smart dressing, and those behind the advertisement say they just want people to clean up after themselves.

“The choice of wording on the display material was not intended to apply exclusively to the gender of the accompanying models,” a spokesperson for the campaign told Echo News. “The key message is a call to action, asking people to dispose of their litter responsibly.”

The campaign made its debut in 2014, a joint effort of fast-food chains and the local council. Last year’s ads had similar pictures of a man and a woman, calling littering “not smart” and “not pretty,” respectively. Despite complaints of sexism last year, the campaign made a comeback, as it reportedly brought down the amount of fast-food-branded litter by 40 percent.

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Original article from TakePart