Kleercut.Net The Archive of the Greenpeace Kleercut Campaign 2004-2009

New Yorkers took action this week outside of Kimberly-Clark's Professional Sales Office in midtown Manhattan! New York Greenpeace activists and students, dressed in labcoats and armed with research materials and clipboards, created a spoof market research team, testing whether consumers can tell which tissues come from clearcut ancient forests. A steady stream of New Yorkers stopped by to take the Kleercut Challenge, wiping their noses with tissues from boxes marked A and B, trying to decide which tissues were made from 90-year old trees and which were made from recycled fiber.

US Kleercut activists kicked off grocery store actions in Roswell and Athens, Georgia with the Kleercut Caravan during the last week of June. On Tuesday, June 28, over 25 activists descended upon three grocery stores in Athens to educate consumers, make calls to Kimberly-Clark executives, and ask store managers to fax a letter to CEO Thomas Falk. This action marked the first grocery store action in the United States!

Kleercut activists were at it again as two grocery stores selling ancient forest destruction were adopted in Ontario last week: Sobeys in Toronto and Loblaws in Burlington. Shannon, Emily, Allyson, Jeff and I adopted the Sobeys location on St. Clair and Yonge in Toronto. The Sobeys adoptive parents arrived at 10:30 am prepared with leaflets, a mock Kleenex/Kleercut box and the enthusiasm to save Canada's Boreal Forest.

Concerned concert goers at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival expressed their concern about Kimberly-Clark destruction of ancient forest to make Kleenex and other throw-away tissue products. Bonnaroo is a four-day, multi-stage camping festival held on a 700 acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee. Approximately 90,000 people attended this year's festival. Greenpeace had an information booth at the festival to education festival goers about our Kleercut and Clean Energy Campaigns. Close to 100 people stopped by to send a message to Kimberly-Clark CEO, Thomas Falk, to stop destroying ancient forests for throw-away tissue products.

Kimberly-Clark annual shareholder meeting in Dallas, Texas. We drive up to the hotel in our rental car, waiting in the long line of cars to get into the hotel compound where Kimberly-Clark is holding their annual meeting. This is the first time in years that Kimberly-Clark’s meeting has been held away from their headquarters.

As we drive by the guard booth at the entrance the guard speaks into his radio: “Silver car – check.” We look up and see police sharpshooters on the roof of the hotel peering at us through telescopes.

April 2, 2005 12.00 PM – Kleercut activists adopt the London Drugs on Granville and Georgia. Activists: Eve, Julien, Brad, Richard.

The setup
We gathered at noon in front of the London Drugs store. Richard had brought the banner, t-shirts, 2 registration sheets and brochures (about 200 of them).
We first went inside to check what the store was offering as “forest friendly” products. The result, as feared, was quite disappointing: Kleenex tissue products reigned supreme over most of the shelves. Alone in a corner, we found some ‘green’ “Doucelle” paper towels made by Cascades, but nothing else. Quite limited.

We had probably chosen the coldest and wettest day to demonstrate outside of Wal-Mart, but the day was chosen and we had work to do. One boy and one girl met outside of the daunting store of colossal bargains, massive consumption, and home of the smiling yellow avatar of the devil.

In thick coats, hats and scarves, we handed out information to people with a little interest in anything other than warmth. Yet for the few beacons of hope, their interest illuminated the cold winter day for us. But as determined as we were, the cold weather was hardly respectful of our young idealism.

For those who do not know me, my name is Earl and I volunteered with with the Kleenex Forest Destruction Tour at local grocery stores in Ontario last week. I have never had a volunteer experience like this with the great enthusiasm from everyone in the tour to reach out to consumers and store managers in Southern Ontario. It’s amazing to see the amount of organization it takes to ensure the events in each city ran as smoothly as they did. Best of all is the biggest creative Kleercut box that I have ever seen, which we can now put up in record time. This is something everyone involved in the tour should be proud of.

We met at 11am on St. Clair Ave. West in Toronto with pamphlets, laptop, and green portable picnic table in tow, to ready ourselves for our little education campaign at the Forest Hill Loblaws grocery store.

It was high noon as we approached the store, and wanting to be polite (and not cold!) we entered the store and asked to speak to the store manager to see if we could set up our little info booth behind the rows of cash registers. According to the 'Assistant Manager' of the store, this was not possible because the Manager was not on duty on Sundays, and such inquiries had to be directed to this particular person only. So out into the cold we went. Eric stationed himself near the upper parking bridge entrance, and Alexis and I ventured forth to the lower parking area entrance. We set up the picnic table, donned our stickers and t-shirts, and smilingly went to work. Alexis created a slideshow of Greenpeace Kleercut images on his laptop for all to see, and we set this up on the table, with stickers and brochures and shoppers’ guides, oh my!

We’re done.

The last stop of the Kleenex Forest Destruction tour of Southern Ontario is over and it has been a resounding success. Today in Mississauga at the Mavis Street Loblaws we had an interesting experience. The setup of the Kleercut box and the banner and the deployment of the activists with leaflets occurred without a hitch. After a week of doing this in various cities, we’re a pretty experience and well-oiled bunch.