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| Working
Assets Joins Campaign Targeting Coca Cola's Plastic Bottle Waste |
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"Action
alert" sent to 300,000 long distance customers with message to call Ivester, pressing
Coke to make soda bottles from recycled plastic
SAN FRANCISCO - July 28 - Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO M. Douglas Ivester is getting
telephone calls and e-mail from an 'action alert' sent to 300,000 Working Assets
customers, calling upon Coke to use recycled plastic to make new soda bottles,
the GrassRoots Recycling Network announced today.
"Working Assets is making a major contribution to the grassroots campaign calling
upon Coca-Cola to take responsibility for its plastic bottle waste. Mr. Ivester
announced in 1990 that his company would start making recycled plastic soda bottles,
but Coke abandoned the process 4 years ago. As a result, billions of plastic bottles
which could be used to make new bottles go to landfills or incinerators every
year," Dr. Bill Sheehan, network coordinator for the GrassRoots Recycling Network,
said today.
Working Assets long distance telephone customers began receiving a 'CitizenAlert'
with their telephone bill on July 10 and the national mailing is expected to be
completed by early August. CitizenAlerts typically generate 30,000 to 40,000 phone
calls.
"Coca-Cola sells more than 25 million sodas everyday in plastic bottles in the
United States. Almost two-thirds of those bottles end up littered or sent to landfills
and incinerators. As fast as those bottles are thrown away, the plastics industry
churns out new bottles and spews out toxic chemicals in making new plastics from
raw materials," said GRRN campaign organizer Lance King.
The GrassRoots Recycling Network (GRRN) is leading a campaign calling upon Coca-Cola
to take responsibility for its wasteful plastic soda bottles. A national nonprofit
organization headquartered in Athens, Georgia, GRRN is mobilizing recycling leaders,
businesses and environmentalists in an effort to eliminate waste and create a
sustainable economy.
"The Working Assets mailing is part of the 'Coke - Take It Back!' campaign launched
by the GrassRoots Recycling Network in September 1998. To date, 88 organizations,
recycling leaders and businesses in 26 states have endorsed the campaign," Sheehan
said.
City councils and government agencies in 6 communities in 4 states have also passed
resolutions calling upon Coke to begin making plastic soda bottles with recycled
material.
"Coke says it abandoned recycled plastic bottles because costs were too high.
But more cost-effective technologies have been developing, technologies passing
U.S. Food and Drug Administration review. Coca-Cola uses recycled plastic - and
even refillable plastic bottles -- in some countries," King said.
More information on the GrassRoots Recycling Network's Coke campaign is available
on the Internet at: http://www.grrn.org. The
working assets alerts can be viewed at www.wald.com/activism/main/actnow.cfm#Tell
and www.shopforchange.com/activism.cfm
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