Day 292 - 01 Nov 96 - Page 10


     
     1        claimed that McDonald's have a consciousness of
     2        environmental considerations and referred to the company's
     3        environmental task force.  I cannot remember the date that
     4        was set up.  I will come that to that in my notes.
     5        Sometime in the early '80s.  And a corporate environmental
     6        policy.  He stated that he did not know when the policy was
     7        published but had seen it, quote, on a wall at the head
     8        office.  He then said that the policy, quote, had not had
     9        direct effect on the purchasing department but, quote, it
    10        certainly did on the communications department, i.e. the PR
    11        department.
    12
    13        Coming from their senior vice-president in charge of
    14        purchasing, we would say that is an admission that their
    15        policies are for propaganda purposes rather than any
    16        substantial impact on the way they carry out their
    17        business.  He denied that of course.
    18
    19        But one example, which I will go into in detail, of course
    20        is the complete failure to carry out any customer
    21        recycling, and in fact in America it is only 10 stores out
    22        of 10,000 at the moment, we heard, I think, from Robert
    23        Beavers, but I will come on to that.  In the UK, despite
    24        having a pilot exercise since about 1989 for about three
    25        years ----
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   When you say 'customer recycling', that is
    28        the same as -----
    29
    30   MR. MORRIS:   Post customer waste, which is what people
    31        understand as recycling.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Can you just remind me on that?   You are
    34        going to, are you?  Because I will tell you what I have in
    35        mind.  It seems to me there are three possible stages:
    36        What ends up on the factory floor in, for instance, the
    37        making of cardboard boxes; what McDonald's would use, or
    38        might keep itself or their distributors might, i.e. the
    39        containers which take stuff to the stores; and then what is
    40        left after the customer has eaten his Big Mac.  Yes?
    41
    42   MR. MORRIS:   In fact you pondered on the subject yourself at
    43        some point and I did make a note so I will be coming to
    44        that.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.  Very well.
    47
    48   MR. MORRIS:   Just checking.  I cannot find it for the moment.
    49        But not only have McDonald's failed to make any attempt to
    50        organise customer recycling, they have had a pilot scheme
    51        first in Usk and then in Manchester, which they have
    52        trumpeted far and wide, and as they have done in this case
    53        as well, and I will come to references on that, when in
    54        fact nothing was being recycled at all by the company, just
    55        by the customers, certainly in terms of the Nottingham one,
    56        although the Manchester one at a later date, which is after
    57        the alleged libel, may or may not have resulted in some
    58        attempt by the company to recycle.
    59
    60        And we believe, although the evidence may not have been

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