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Greenpeace rally.

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Plastics News
July 21, 1997
LOLLAPALOOZA JOINS DIOXIN CAMPAIGN
BYLINE: PLASTICS NEWS REPORT
SECTION: News; Pg. 5

WASHINGTON--Greenpeace teamed up with rock festival Lollapalooza and took its dioxin and PVC campaign to the White House with a July 10 rally that organizers estimate drew 1,000 people in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.

The rally included performances from Perry Farrell & Porno for Pyros, Michelle Schocked and the band James. Greenpeace also said it held a "die-in" to memorialize victims of dioxin and had several experts speak at the rally.

It was the only such rally planned as part of Greenpeace's dioxin campaign, according to spokeswoman Terri Johnson.

The environmental organization handed out fliers with White House telephone numbers and an e-mail address. The group urged an end to incineration, PVC plants and chlorine dioxide bleaching at paper mills and the phaseout of dioxin-producing materials.

Greenpeace said PVC is the largest source of dioxin, but industry officials said the environmental group has not explained how PVC production in the United States has tripled while dioxin levels have gone down since 1970.

"You are going to have to explain that curve, and you can't," said William Carroll, a spokesman for the Morristown, N.J.-based Vinyl Institute. "It remains unaddressed."

Carroll also said in the July 10 interview that he has a vinyl record in his office made by Farrell in 1993.

Greenpeace was protesting what it said is the Clinton administration's backing away from commitments to phase out chlorine uses that produce dioxin, decrease incineration and purchase chlorine-free paper.

"Each time Clinton and Gore have had the opportunity to eliminate a major source -- such as incinerators, paper mills or PVC factory expansions -- they have backed down under pressure from corporate polluters," said Greenpeace toxics campaigner Bill Walsh.