Greenpeace claims KFC buckets are destroying the rainforest
Greenpeace activists dressed as Orangutans take part in a protest outside a KFC outlet in New Delhi on May 24, 2012. Greenpeace activists staged a protest dressed as Orangutans, urging Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) to stop destroying rainforests – habitat for endangered species like orangutans and the Sumatran tiger.
KFC chicken buckets may be destroying the rainforest.
In a new report by Greenpeace International, the group claims that Kentucky Fried Chicken is making its trademark KFC chicken buckets using wood harvested from Indonesia’s rain forest, destroying the habitat of the endangered Sumatran tiger.
"That's right. KFC is destroying the habitat of the last remaining Sumatran tigers for potato wedges and 12-piece buckets of extra crispy chicken. It's disgusting," Greenpeace said in a statement on their site.
Greenpeace also called out KFC's paper supply company, Asia Pulp & Paper. On their site, Asia Pulp & Paper boasts that, "We support actions for economic, social and environmental sustainability."
An APP spokesman responded to the claims by telling Business Insider that their company does not harvest virgin tropical rainforest trees in Indonesia.
"APP has strict policies and practices in place to ensure that only residues from legal plantation development on degraded or logged-over forest areas and sustainable wood fiber enters the production supply chain," the spokesperson said.
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Independent tests on food boxes purchased at stores in Indonesia, the UK and China in the past two years found fibers from tropical hardwood trees, according to Bloomberg.
In China, more than half the material in some KFC chicken buckets came from such wood, Rolf Skar, forest campaign director for Greenpeace, told Bloomberg.
“Do consumers want to have chicken wrapped in rain forests, or is there a better way of doing business? A big customer like KFC, they’re massive in places like China and Indonesia, they have a lot of control over where they get their paper," Skar said.
A spokesman for KFC told Business Insider, “The fact is that 60 percent of paper products we purchase are sourced from sustainable forests, and suppliers are moving toward 100 percent.”
Greenpeace said that this marks the "beginning of a global campaign against KFC's role in rainforest destruction." It's demanding that KFC drops APP and implements a policy against rainforest destruction.
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