It started dropping through 360,000 letterboxes across the citylast week, providing information about and promoting the efforts ofBirmingham City Council’s recycling operations.
Included in it are details of what, where and when to recycle and aphotograph of the Birmingham skyline.
Another photograph bears the legend ‘Thank YouBirmingham’ above an image of a city skyline. This particularimage however is not of Birmingham, UK, but Birmingham, Alabama, inthe USA.
Despite the gaffe, council officials have insisted the pamphlet - asecond print run of the
Recycle: Your Questions Answered
- will not be recalled, pulped or reprinted.
The mistake was spotted by Jon Cooper when the leaflet wasdelivered to his Kings Norton home. The 37-year-old, who works fora Midland packaging firm, said: “I emailed the council lastweek, after the leaflet came through my door, to draw attention totheir mistake.
“I work in the packaging industry and we have to check allour printed materials thoroughly, because if we don’t spot amistake you can be sure Sainsbury’s or Tesco will, which iswhy I can’t believe nobody at the council noticed this beforethe leaflets were sent out.
“I’m a regular visitor to the States, so when I sawthat image on the back of it I instantly knew that it was a UScity, not Birmingham in the West Midlands, so I 'Googled' it andfound it was an image of Birmingham, Alabama.”
Mr Cooper added: “I would have thought the city council wouldbe a bit more bothered about the image that they put out of thisBirmingham, especially if it’s going into hundreds ofthousands of homes.
“I am sure this was a simple mistake by whoever was asked tofind a picture of the city, but who is checking this stuff?”
A city council spokesman claimed there was "no point tinkering withit” and described the offending photo as “a genericskyline picture”.
He added: “The picture on the leaflet is meant tosymbolically represent an urban area. Since its first publicationlast year, the leaflet has been well-received by residents, and isthe most requested document to be produced by the Fleet and WasteManagement Department.
“Feedback from households has been very positive – the leaflet has achieved its aim of informing citizens about therecycling options, both doorstep and other, that are available tothem.
“On a total production run of 720,000 copies, the council hasreceived just one query about the use of a generic skylinepicture.”
This is not the first time Birmingham’s distinctive skyline -with iconic buildings like the Rotunda, Beetham Tower and the BTTower - has been mistaken for its American namesake.
Last January, West Midlands’ Conservative MEPs made the samemistake on their website. On that occasion they were swift toreplace the image - within 24 hours - to one of Selfridges’distinctive discs and the spire of St Martin’s in the BullRing.
Eagle-eyed Labour MP Tom Watson (Lab West Bromwich East) hadspotted their mistake and offered to take his Conservative rivalson a sight-seeing tour of the city to ensure they were familiarwith its landmarks.
Like its Midland namesake, Birmingham, Alabama, is an city built onindustry and manufacturing but has a significantly smallerpopulation of about 230,000, compared with the million-plusresidents who live here.
Marketing Birmingham, the agency charged with promoting the citynationally and overseas, declined to comment on the council’scase of mistaken identity.