Aussie expat Tim Pashen behind Plastic Change’s ballsy campaign via Worth Your While, Denmark

Aussie expat creative Tim Pashen, Creative Director and Partner at Copenhagen-based independent agency Worth Your While, has helped launch a suitably ballsy new campaign for Danish NGO Plastic Change this Father’s Day. ‘May contain traces of nuts’ is a universal disclaimer on food packaging and for those people with life-threatening allergies, it’s a vital warning about hidden toxic ingredients.

But we should all be concerned about traces of something even more harmful that’s been sneaking into our bodies, including our most private parts: microplastics.

This year, Father’s Day and World Environment Day fall on the same date in Denmark. A reminder that the health of our environment and the health of future generations are deeply connected, and microplastics is one particular issue that affect both.

To shine a light on how the plastic pollution crisis is directly threatening male fertility, Danish NGO Plastic Change has launched a suitably ballsy campaign: These Nuts May Contain Traces of Plastic.

The campaign takes a familiar food alert and twists it into a provocative double-meaning.

The campaign centres on a series of deliberately shocking OOH executions across Denmark. Hyper-real, close-up visuals of wrinkled testicle skin are presented like supermarket packaging, complete with nutrition-style labels listing microplastics as an “ingredient,” alongside potential side effects including infertility, hormone disruption and reduced sperm count. Part visual gag, part health warning, the campaign is designed to stop people in their tracks, acting as a kick in the nuts.

Behind the provocative visuals – created by digital imagery studio We Are Eli – lies a serious message, backed up by credible research. Microplastics have been found in semen, testicles, and even penile tissue, with preliminary findings showing that men with microplastics in their testicular tissue have sperm counts roughly half those of men without. Meanwhile, microplastic accumulation has been shown to suppress testosterone and the hormones that control male fertility, disrupting the body’s reproductive system at its root. Global sperm counts have declined by more than 50% over the past half century, with environmental factors, including plastic exposure, increasingly under scrutiny as contributors to this growing fertility crisis. Yet despite mounting scientific evidence, awareness of the issue remains low, particularly among men.

Worth Your While’s creative strategy taps into a key behavioural insight: many men disengage from environmental messaging. By reframing microplastics as a direct threat to male fertility and highlighting the issue towards fathers today and to the fathers of the future, the campaign transforms a distant global issue into something immediate and personal: their own bodies.

Says Henrik Beha Pedersen, founder of the NGO Plastic Change and environmental biologist: “We are left in the darkness, not only men and their testicles, but humans in general, are left alone with microplastics in our bodies. 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. The EU just backed down on a planned revision of the chemicals law REACH and thereby also the intention to make plastic polymer registration mandatory. The industry pressure has a direct and unacceptable effect; humans are not protected against microplastics in our bodies. We need a plastic change. Otherwise we walk on towards an unknown future.”

Says Pashen: “We’re launching this campaign around Father’s Day because the conversation isn’t just about plastic pollution, it’s also about reproductive health and future generations. The fact that Father’s Day in Denmark lands on World Environment Day felt like the perfect moment to ask why plastics are ending up in places they were never meant to be.”

These Nuts May Contain Traces of Plastic will roll out across OOH alongside social, PR and earned media.

These Nuts May Contain Traces of Plastic is the latest campaign from Plastic Change and Worth Your While, following the Bottle Bulge campaign in August 2025.

Client: Plastic Change

Creative: Worth Your While
Creative Director & Partner: Tim Pashen
Creative Director & Partner: Lukas Lund
Design Director & Partner: Carl Angelo
Creatives: Katrine Winblad, Monique Marie Funch, Isa Bella Madelena Normark, Frederik Emil Vedersø Larsen, Frida Snekkerup
Chief Strategy Officer: Tali Madsen
Project Management: Christine Gyrsting Lorentzen

Production: We Are Eli
Media Agency: WPP Media
Media Placement: Ocean Outdoor

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