“Greenpeace demands that Kimberly-Clark stop wiping away our
treasured, ancient forests to make disposable products like tissue
and toilet paper,” said Lindsey Allen, Greenpeace forest
campaigner. “Greenpeace is here to directly communicate with
Kimberly-Clark employees so they can encourage their company’s
leadership to stop using endangered forests such as the Boreal to
make products that are used once and then thrown away.”
Greenpeace is particularly interested in communicating with Ken
Strassner, Kimberley-Clark’s Vice President of Global Environment,
Safety, Regulatory and Scientific Affairs, who works out of the
Roswell office. Strassner no doubt knows of the recent Greenpeace
report that shows how Kimberly-Clark devastated Ontario’s Kenogami
Forest while promoting itself as a socially responsible
environmental leader. The report, “Cut and Run: Kimberly-Clark’s
Legacy of Environmental Devastation,” uses government information,
independent audits, public records, and satellite mapping to
document Kimberly-Clark’s management and logging of the Kenogami
Forest near Thunder Bay, Ontario. It details how, in just 70 years,
the Kenogami Forest has been turned from a vast expanse of healthy,
near-pristine forest to a severely damaged landscape rife with
social and environmental problems–largely to make products that
are used once and then thrown away.
“Kimberly-Clark is not taking the interests of the green consumer
seriously,” Allen said. “People who care about the environment do
not want toilet paper that helps destroy caribou habitat and bird
nesting sites. Instead, Kimberly-Clark should increase the
post-consumer recycled content of its paper products.”
Kimberly-Clark is the largest tissue product company in the world.
It manufactures the popular Kleenex brand of tissue products, which
is sold in several formats–toilet paper, facial tissue and
napkins. Kimberly-Clark produces millions of tons of tissue
products annually and generates net sales of $18.3 billion.
VVPR info: Daniel Kessler, Greenpeace, (970) 690-2728; Lindsey Allen, Greenpeace, (415) 710-5601
Notes: Event photos will be available this afternoon at http://usaphoto.greenepace.org/forestsKCGA081208/
