1999 Earth Day Environmental Organizing Event:
Coke: Take it Back!
Several campus environmental organizations have contacted me about the
Coke Take it Back campaign, and how they can help send a message to
Coke that we want them to use recycled content in their bottles.
Here's the plan as it has evolved to date:
The campus environmental groups will set up a table which will be
flanked on one side with a chicken wire enclosure full of plastic pop
bottles, and on the other with an empty enclosure.
For $1, a person can grab a bottle out of one enclosure, bring it over
to the table where we'll slap postage and a label on it, (cost: .57
cents), and then deposit it in the other enclosure. The people at the
table will also give the student a small, round sticker (cost: .03
cents) that says, in white letters reversed on red, "I told Coke to
Take it Back". The clubs will net about 40 cents on each bottle sent
back.
For the campus organizations, the time demands are getting the
volunteers, preparing the banners that will be hung on the chicken
wire enclosures, and staffing the tables at the event. We figure
there will be two photo opportunities; one at the event on Earth Day,
and one at the post office several days later, when they're mailed
off.
The groups don't plan on having more than a few copies of the
background literature on hand at the tables (in sheet protectors), as
they see this as primarily an action event. Thus they'll be avoiding
all the duplicating costs of the literature, and preventing allot of
litter.
The local municipal or county recycling programs have been more than
willing to deliver the necessary PET bottles (w/caps) to the sites on
Earth Day, as well as provide the fencing. They are also counting on
the recycling centers to help them transport the labeled bottles to
the post office a few days later, should volumes necessitate.
Carol Stenberg is the Minnesota contact, and she's a student at Winona
State University in Winona, MN. If student groups on the listserve
have questions on how to do this on their campus, she can be reached
at 507.453.0183. If anyone is interested, Carol can increase her
order of the stickers if she hears by April 8th. At this point, she's
ordering 5,000.
To date, there are students working on Coke Take it Back events on
Earth Day on the following campuses:
Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota
Carlton College, Northfield, Minnesota
Mankato State University, Mankato, Minnesota
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
University of Minnesota, Duluth
University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
We'll keep you updated as things continue to evolve.
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