Who gains from saving nature
Ledger 1 : 33 — For each dollar financing nature-based solutions in 2023, about $33 financed activities harmful to nature. (UNEP)
Cases / Plastic waste and recycling claims · United States · 1953–1981

Keep America Beautiful, founded by can and bottle makers, opposed bottle deposit laws

Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.

Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
  • The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
What the record lacks: 1 none on record · 6 insufficient · 1 not measured See the gaps

The anti-litter group was set up in December 1953 by can and bottle makers, and its leaders opposed deposit laws, according to the historian Finis Dunaway. The case concerns whether responsibility for litter was shifted from producers to individuals.

What?
Keep America Beautiful, founded by can and bottle makers, opposed bottle deposit laws and framed litter as individual responsibility. What It Means to Be American
Where?
United States (Vermont, Oregon, Tennessee and national) What It Means to Be American
When?
1953–1981 What It Means to Be American
Who?
Gained
  • American Can and Owens-Illinois, the founding can and bottle makers — founded the group whose leaders opposed deposit laws What It Means to Be American
Lost
None on record
Harmed
None on record
Why?
Dunaway writes that KAB's leaders opposed deposit laws that would have required producers to use reusable containers. What It Means to Be American
How?
A public anti-litter advertising campaign and opposition to deposit laws, according to Dunaway (2017). What It Means to Be American
6 of 6 questions answered from the record

What happened

The record, in order.

Keep America Beautiful was formed in December 1953 by can maker American Can and bottle maker Owens-Illinois, and Coca-Cola and Dixie Cup joined later (Wikipedia).

Historian Finis Dunaway writes that its leaders opposed deposit laws and called their supporters communists, and that the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club left its advisory board (Dunaway, 2017).

Its 1971 'Crying Indian' advert ran on Earth Day and carried a slogan placing responsibility for pollution on people, and it won two Clio awards (Dunaway, 2017).

Tennessee chose a small container tax instead of a deposit in 1981, with the revenue going to clean-up crews and Keep Tennessee Beautiful (Dunaway, 2017).

    In court and with insurers

    Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.

    Lawsuits and rulings

    No court case on record. No court has ruled on this case.

    Insurers

    No insurer decision on record.

    What we don't know

    Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.

    Nature

    • Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.

    Record

    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: Heather Rogers's account that the group was formed in reaction to Vermont's 1953 ban on non-deposit beer bottles, a law that lapsed four years later.
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: Oregon's 1971 deposit law passed despite bottler lobbying and an anonymous cash offer.
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: the beverage industry funded about 75% of the budget of SOLV, a clean-up group set up by a governor.
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: the group's funders include PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris, Anheuser-Busch and WM (SourceWatch and The Intercept).
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: Marsteller Inc., which made the advert, became part of Burson-Marsteller in 1979.
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: the group popularised the word 'litterbug' but did not coin it; the word is recorded from 1939 and 1947.
    • None on record Not stated in the sources reviewed: the group's current funding.

    Did the harm stop?

    Not stated in the sources reviewed.

    Who paid?

    Not stated in the sources reviewed.

    Sources

    Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts✓ Press and investigations— Communities and civil society✓ Researchers

    Press and investigations

    Researchers

    1. The Crying Indian ad that fooled the environmental movement
      What It Means to Be American · 2017-11-09

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    Related matters, and cases linked to this one through the same organisations, with the role each played in both.
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    Same type: Plastic waste and recycling claimsSame countryHarm to nature not measured