April 8, 1999
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In this week's News: learn how to protect the last of America's wildlands,
tell Coke to use recycled plastic, and find out how student activists are
forwarding the Kyoto Resolution on climate change.
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CORPORATE CORNER
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COKE -- TAKE IT BACK!!
The GrassRoots Recycling Network (GRRN) has launched a national Coke
Take-It-Back Campaign to make the Coca-Cola Company live up to its promise
to use recycled plastic in the 8 billion plastic bottles it sells in the
U.S. every year. Coca-Cola promised voluntary action in 1990 in the face
of potential government mandates, but when the threat disappeared Coke
quietly abandoned its program. Now, eight years later, plastic waste is
increasing ten times faster than plastic recycling, and none of Coke's
bottles contain any recycled plastic. Most (64%) used soda bottles become
waste or litter -- largely because Coke refuses to "close the loop" by
taking them back and using them again.
TAKE ACTION NOW: We must hold Coke accountable for its broken
environmental commitments --- join with environmental, consumer, and
student activists on Earth Day by sending Coke empty plastic bottles with
the message: "Take This Back and Use It Again!" Have your campus
environmental group set up a table with a basket full of empty Coke bottles
and some postage stamps. GRRN suggests charging $1 for students to send a
bottle back to Coke. GRRN has literature available for campus events and
Carol Stenberg (see below) has stickers ("I Told Coke to Take It Back!").
FOR MORE INFO: Contact Carol Stenberg, Winona State University,
507.453.0183 or Bill Sheehan, GrassRoots Recycling Network, 706.613.7121,
zerowaste@grrn.org, http://www.grrn.org