GP Delivers Solutions To Fletcher Challenge Shareholders

[the.greenbase@green2.greenpeace.org]

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Original-TO:      World Press (Green2:Green2:Gnl:INET)
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GREENPEACE DELIVERS SOLUTION TO FLETCHER CHALLENGE
SHAREHOLDERS
 
Press Release
 
Auckland, 31 October 1996 (GP) -- Greenpeace today used its
address to company directors and shareholders at the 1996
Fletcher Challenge AGM to urge the company to convert their
pulp and paper mills to Totally Chlorine-Free (TCF) production
by the year 2000.
 
Campaign Director Stephanie Mills presented CEO Hugh Fletcher
with a bottle of oxygen bleach as the solution to using toxic
chlorine-based bleaching at its pulp and paper mills in New
Zealand and Canada, with the message, "the answer is in your
hands."
 
The AGM was also addressed by Pouroto Ngaropo of Te Tatau
Pounamu, a group representing the three tribes from the
Tarawera River area (Ngati Awa, Ngati Rangitiki and Tuwharetoa
ki Kawerau) who are calling for zero discharge from FCL's
Tasman mill at Kawerau by the year 2000.
 
"Our message was warmly received by shareholders. Many of them
told us they agree that FCL has a wider responsibility than
simply making short-term profits," Stephanie Mills said.
"Chlorine-based bleaching used to be seen as a necessary evil
by the industry; with the arrival of environmentally safe
oxygen bleaching it is now an unnecessary evil."
 
"Pulp and paper companies around the world have faced the same
choices that FCL does today. Increasingly they are choosing
Totally Chlorine-Free oxygen bleaching on economic as well as
environmental grounds," she said.
 
Greenpeace also released a new report, Pulp Fiction, detailing
the environmental impact of the Tasman Pulp and Paper mill's
toxic pollution of the Tarawera River over the past 42 years. 
 
ENDS
 
Pictures available from FotoPress Auckland on (09) 302 0033;
copies of Pulp Fiction available from Greenpeace on request.
 
Contact: Stephanie Mills (09) 630 7317 or (025) 790 817 or
Glyn Walters (09) 630 6317 or (025) 931 363.
 

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