[GreenYes] Re: COKE Recycling along the Torch Relay Routes

[Pat Franklin <pfranklin@container-recycling.org>]

  RE:   COKE Recycling along the Torch Relay Routes


On 1/24/02 Pete Pasterz wrote:

>Along the Torch Relay routes preceding the Olympics,
>Coca Cola sponsored Green Teams (recruited of local
>recyclers) to collect bottles and cans at Relay events
>for recycling. Materials were given to local recycling
>programs around the country as part of these events.
>
>I checked around recycling programs here in Lansing,
>and no one seems to have been contacted by Coke for
>being part of their green team as the torch was passed here...
==============================================

My response to Pete Pastez . . . . .

So Pete, what makes you think Coke would waste time
in Michigan, where Coca-Cola and other beer and soda
containers are recycled at a rate of 95%, and you couldn't
find a littered Coke can or plastic bottle if you tried?

Coke's recycling efforts along the Torch Relay Route,
are more PR than anything else.  Yes, they are bringing
attention to recycling and yes, they are recycling some cans
and bottles along the way.  And yes, they should be
applauded for this.  (Pepsi obviously doesn't give a darn.)
But Coke's efforts are very short term.  They are not setting
up a recycling system or program that is sustainable.

Coke's Green Teams will be here today and gone tomorrow,
but the flood of Coke and other beverage bottles and cans
will go on and on and on.

And, while Coke and their Green Teams follow the Relay
Torch across the country to the Games in Utah, their
Not-So-Green Team of high paid lobbyists are working
feverishly in Iowa and Columbia, Missouri to kill the only
truly successful beverage container recycling program in
existence, the 'bottle bill'.  And, they are simultaneously
trying to derail the bottle bill proposed in Hawaii last year
that passed BOTH the house and senate and is now in a
conference committee.

Coke's 'Not-So-Green Team' is doing more damage to the
environment than their Green Team is doing good.

Sorry Coke didn't pay much attention to you folks in
Lansing, Pete, but I guess some things, like bottle bills,
don't go better with Coke.

Enjoy the Games (on tv I presume).

Cheers!

Pat

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