U.K. Recycle Week’s ‘Precious Metal’ a Controversy
by Amanda Wills
Published on June 23rd, 2009
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U.K.’s annual Recycle Week kicked off on June 22 with more than 330 events to take place throughout the country. However, Coca-Cola’s celebration has caused quite a stir. The beverage giant unveiled a giant sculpture made out of aluminum cans, touting the phrase: “Keep it going. Recycle.”
Coca-Cola calls "Precious Metal" the world's largest recycled artwork. Photo: Letsrecycle.com
Some media outlets are up-in-arms about the display as the metal cans are located on an English cliff top of the Sussex coastline. Treehugger dubs the structure as trash along the English coastline, posing the question of what will happen to the materials once Recycle Week has come to an end.
However, Coca-Cola says the idea is to draw attention to recycling and the fact that it can be used to preserve precious resources, such as aluminum.
“Old cans aren’t just waste, they’re precious metal,” says Liz Lowe, citizenship manager for Coca-Cola Great Britain. “They can live forever through recycling, to be used time and time again to make a whole number of new things saving huge amounts of energy and raw materials.”
Coca-Cola is partnering with WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) for Recycle Week. The duo aims to establish recycling stations in public places such as shopping centers, airports and theme parks.
In order to promote its campaign, Coca-Cola released a video about the construction of its “Precious Metal” structure.
