Day 062 - 06 Dec 94 - Page 28
1 was our tree expert -- in a different way and came up with
2 a figure 1.41 or 1.42 square miles, so perhaps there is not
3 that much water between you. Overall, assuming that
4 McDonald's continues to expand -- let me start from perhaps
5 a slightly different direction. We noticed when we looked
6 at your chart for corrugated packaging, transport
7 packaging, that though the amount of corrugated transport
8 packaging was increasing over a three-year period, the
9 amount of virgin fibre was actually decreasing in absolute
10 terms?
11 A. Yes.
12
13 Q. I wonder if you are able to make a prediction or an
14 estimate of what may happen overall in relation to virgin
15 fibre and its proportion to recycled fibre in McDonald's
16 packaging?
17 A. In transportation packaging it will slowly at this
18 point in time go down even further, the virgin use, I would
19 say. Probably at this point in time, the absolute usage
20 will stay approximately similar because the progress that
21 can be made is not that much harder. The growth that
22 McDonald's will have is probably a little bit faster than
23 what we experience here. I stated before in sales
24 packaging, so the products that we sell to McDonald's, the
25 shift will there be that products that currently cannot be
26 made of recycled products in future may be made of recycled
27 material because of the fact that the raw material can be
28 better controlled, etc.
29
30 Q. Might these Enso-Gutzeit's cups be an example or not?
31 A. For instance.
32
33 Q. They are totally virgin fibre at the moment?
34 A. At this point in time they are still totally virgin
35 fibre, yes.
36
37 Q. Is that something you will be looking at in the future?
38 A. It is something that we have looked at and it is
39 something that we are currently looking at. So far, one of
40 the main problems has been that if you make a cup of
41 recycled material, you know, recycled material, you will
42 generally still see some of the fibres. A cup that is made
43 of recycled fibre, you keep on thinking that there is
44 little bits of hair or whatever is in there and that was
45 not very hygienic. It looked not very pleasant and so far,
46 therefore, we have said: "This is not a good possibility
47 yet".
48
49 The second problem that you have at the moment with cups is
50 the fact that there is a side -- if you have a cup, it is
51 formed round. The side is actually going to be, although
52 the surface is covered with a plastic layer to prevent
53 leaking, the side of the board is actually open. It is
54 actually in contact with the liquid which will be inside.
55 So, therefore, you have to have very much control over the
56 contamination in that recycled content to -----
57
58 Q. Just so that we have understood do you mean that where the
59 seam is?
60 A. At the point of the seam, yes.
