Hi Karl,
I appreciate your interest in this issue ... and your
questions are good ones ... so here's some responses...
(I don't know whether or not you have recieved back
anything from anyone else)
First, by way of introduction, I am the Executive
Director of EcoCycle here in Boulder... your local
community recycling organization. I am also one of
the founders of the national GrassRoots Recycling
Network and creators of the Coke campaign.
We started the GRRN in the Spring of 1997, and one of
our "platforms" was a new concept called ZeroWaste.
One important tactic to achieve this goal is called
"extended producer responsibility" (EPR) which says that
the producer of a "waste" product (such as an empty
postconsumer plastic soda bottle) is responsible to
participate in the final disposition of that item.
This idea of EPR is law in Europe, and GRRN feels that
EPR would be good for the USA also.
After a weekend retreat in Georgia last year, a group
of very talented "social change agents" (ie. organizers
from all over the country with decades of experience)
made some decisions ... one of them was to select Coke
as our target to raise the EPR issue and educate people
about why it is necessary. We do not agree, for many
reasons, that "both competitors should be treated the
same"... as you put it. I understand your desire for
fairness, but in the hard world of power and social
change, fairness isn't really the issue.
I suggest you read a book
called "Rules For Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. There
are many ways to try and change the world, and Alinsky
is one of the masters.