A complaint that an advertisement showing a man on a toilet was offensive has been thrown out.

As part of a recycling campaign Cityclean, Brighton and Hove City Council's refuse and recycling department, created the advert with a man sitting on a toilet.

In the photograph he is holding a cardboard toilet roll tube and the advert carries the caption: "It's not hard to recycle card".

At least one person complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, the watchdog able to ban adverts it deems offensive or misleading.

The authority ruled that the advert was unlikely to cause widespread offence as people would understand it was meant to be funny.

The poster features 22-year-old Cityclean worker Alex Williams and is being shown on refuse lorries, recycling vehicles, buses, posters and leaflets. Other images in the campaign feature a pensioner on the beach with a battery-powered ghetto blaster stereo and a woman feeding a cat from a can.

Environment councillor Gill Mitchell said: "The posters are fun and they're effective.

Residents are definitely getting the message about recycling and their response has been fantastic.

"People understand that we have to take action now to preserve the environment for future generations."