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Statement in support of Shareholder Resolution on Recycling
By Pat Franklin, Executive Director |
| Mr. Daft, members of the board of directors and
shareholders, my name is Pat Franklin; I'm the executive director of
the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), a nonprofit research and public
education organization that studies container and packaging recycling
issues. Thank you for the opportunity to address Item # 5 on the agenda. Who can forget that word uttered to Dustin Hoffman in the movie "The Graduate" more than thirty years ago -- PLASTICS. Baby bottles, salsa jars and soda bottles all made of glass at the time, are now made of plastic. As Coke's reliance on plastic packaging grows, so too does the problem of beverage container waste. Today, three out of four plastic beverage bottles are thrown away rather than recycled. Three out of four! The world's leading soft drink company can reverse this wasteful trend and become the world's leading recycler. I urge you to adopt Item # 5 that calls on the Coca-Cola company to use 25% post-consumer recycled PET content in its new plastic bottles, and to adopt a program that will recover and recycle 80% of Coke beverage cans and bottles by 2005. These are not unreasonable demands. But a commitment to use recycled content must be coupled with a commitment to a goal for recovering used containers. For Coke to incorporate 25% recycled content into its new bottles the national recycling rate must first increase substantially. Unfortunately, plastic beverage bottle recycling and aluminum can recycling, too, are declining despite continued growth in curbside recycling. The plastic soft drink bottle recycling rate dropped 12 percentage points between 1993 and 1999, from 48% to 36% while the population served by curbside recycling programs experienced double-digit growth -- 22 percentage points during that same time period. In an 8-year period beverage container recycling has dropped by 50%. Ironically, the problem is not lack of demand for the used containers. Markets for are strong. The decline is due primarily to the growing number of single-serving containers consumed away from home and away from curbside recycling opportunities. We do not have a 'recycling' problem, we have a 'collection' problem. Financial incentives are the only answer to increasing collection and recycling of beverage containers. The difference between recycling rates for aluminum cans (55%) and plastic soda bottles (36%) is due to the 1 to 1.5 cent scrap value for aluminum cans vs. a fraction of a penny for plastic. Financial incentives work. Beverage cans and bottles are recycled at average rates above 80% in 10 states and one U.S. city where containers have a deposit value. Contrast that with average beverage container recycling rates below 40% in the remaining 40 states without bottle bills. Container deposits are a proven incentive to recycle and a disincentive to litter, yet the Coca-Cola Company and its trade associations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to repeal existing bottle bills and to defeat new bottle bill proposals. Efforts to repeal bottle bills have failed. No bottle bill has ever been repealed because public support is strong - above 75%. The negative lobbying that persists engenders ill will and distrust among consumers. During this meeting, Americans will purchase 8 million packaged Coke soft drinks. They will recycle about 3.5 million of those cans and bottles, but most of the remaining 4.5 million containers will end up in landfills or incinerators. I know you will agree that this is a 'solid waste'. And, in the words of Peter Coors, "All waste is lost profit." But the billions of Coke containers trashed each year represent far more than the tons they weigh or the miles of beaches and parks they occupy as litter. They represent a wealth of energy and resources, squandered. Tens of thousands of Coca-Cola cans and bottles will also be littered on beaches, in streams and parks and along our nations roadside's before this meeting ends. Every Coke bottle and can lying in a ditch or on a beach is an advertisement -- an advertisement the company can do without. As market leader, Coke has an opportunity and a responsibility to show leadership in recycling. How can the Coca-Cola Company continue its assault on proposed and existing bottle bills AND, in your words, Mr. Daft, deliver its product "in an environmentally sound and sustainable way?" |
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