A 250 Strong Herd of Asian Elephants Invade the London Metropolitan Area

Online, April 21, 2010 (Newswire.com) - London, England - April 2, 2010 - "Elephant Family" the London based charity founded to protect the Asian Elephant, in conjunction with the Greater London Authority, plans to place more than 250 life sized baby elephants in 250+ locations across London during the months of May and June, 2010. Each of these life sized baby elephants will be uniquely painted and decorated by a wide range of individuals, schools and businesses, including famous and talented artists from across the UK.

The event has already won the backing of Boris Johnson and the Greater London Authority, prominent artists and well known personalities such as The Duchess of York, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley and Michael Palin. This hugely ambitious and high profile fund raising event hopes to raise £2 + million for charities and support organisations concerned with protecting elephants in Asia. In addition the organisers hope to raise awareness of the plight of the Asian elephant amongst the 25 million plus population of the Greater London Conurbation.

Due to the highly artistic treatment being given to most of the elephant models, the event organisers were highly concerned about the risks posed by graffiti vandals to these life size works of art, which will be located in prominent locations around the capital city of the UK. Uppermost in their minds was to find an anti graffiti coating that could address a very stringent set of requirements. This extensive 'shopping list' of features included a proven ability not to damage the artwork on the elephants, be able to be provide rigorous protection to an incredibly diverse range of artistic substrates including, oil based paints, glass beads, gold leaf etc and yet be able to allow the event organisers remove graffiti attacks easily and without the use of chemical graffiti removers.

Joanna Cary-Elwes, Campaign and Events Manager of the Elephant Trust commented after the evaluation process "The PSS20 system was simply the best......and we really liked its environmental credentials". PSS20 which is a completely plant derived anti graffiti system, was originally developed in Switzerland. Since the early 1990's PSS20 has been hugely successful across Europe, protecting such famous landmarks as the Sacre Coeur in Paris and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, is for now being marketed in the UK and Ireland by the Ethical Coatings Company.

PSS20 will be applied to all of the 250+ 'baby elephants', protecting artwork potentially worth millions of pounds. Mr. Anthony Blowick, Managing Director of Ethical Coatings commenting on the awarding of the contract by the Elephant Trust to protect the elephants was quoted as saying "as sacrificial systems go, PSS20 is really the only system which can guarantee zero toxic residues in the event of a graffiti removal and still be completely safe for children and adults alike should they come in contact with the plant based coating. With kiddies and adults getting photographed on and near the model elephants, public safety is paramount"