Thursday, August 21, 2008

Corporate America - fullas#i+

Dear Kevin,

In the distant future, the Earth is barren of all life forms; humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet behind. This doomsday scenario is reality for Wall*E, the lovable, animated robot in this summer's blockbuster environmental movie from Disney/Pixar. If you've seen the movie Wall*E, you probably got the same thrill out of it as we did here at Greenpeace. (It seems that I'm not the only one around here with an appetite for entropy - Ed.) Meanwhile, the movie's box office success is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans of all stripes.

That's why we were perplexed (maybe even a little puzzled? Ed.) to see that Kimberly-Clark is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you'll see a little recycled symbol that says: "This box is made from 100% recycled paper." What you won't see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from trees up to 180 years old that were cut from forests up to 10,000 years old. Nor will you read that Kimberly-Clark refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests.

A movie about conservation being used to sell a disposable paper product that contains absolutely no recycled content? It's the height of irony. (I didn't embed the video here because it has the sKILLy effect.)

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