Day 292 - 01 Nov 96 - Page 12


     
     1        and plates.  The point is, is it damaging to the
     2        environment and do people have a right to say so.
     3
     4        And that will be, no doubt, in Mr. Rampton's submission one
     5        of his goalpost moving efforts, where he says, "well, they
     6        have not really got any choice, they are doing the best
     7        they can", but that might be a fair enough right to reply
     8        to criticisms but it does not give them the right to
     9        suppress valid criticisms by environmentalists and outlaw
    10        that kind of free speech.  I cannot really imagine any
    11        situation where people in this country or anywhere else
    12        will not think that fast food packaging is wasteful and
    13        damaging.
    14
    15        Moving on with Mr. Oakley, in some countries the company
    16        has admitted abandoning or limiting the use of polystyrene
    17        packaging in part because it was not biodegradable and took
    18        up a lot of space in land fill sites.  And so if, as the
    19        company have claimed, that their packaging is only a very
    20        small part of land fill, then why stop using it if it is
    21        such an insignificant part.  The point is, it is a
    22        recognition, public recognition and an attempt to get
    23        public credibility for it, having done so in the face of
    24        criticism, that their packaging has contributed to the land
    25        fill problem.
    26
    27        Mr. Oakley stated there was no land fill problem in the UK,
    28        which I think is an extremely irresponsible statement
    29        because the problem is one that is a growing problem.  The
    30        fact it has not reached capacity yet will be no thanks to
    31        those who create this disposable packaging who are the
    32        people responsible for the land fill filling up.  And he
    33        was asked:  As long as there is room in the dumps, there is
    34        no problem with dumping lots of McDonald's waste in the
    35        ground.  He replied:  And everybody else's waste, yes, that
    36        is true.  I can see the dumping of waste to be of benefit;
    37        otherwise, you would end up with lots of vast empty gravel
    38        pits all over the country.  Asked if he was asserting it as
    39        environment benefit to dump waste in land fill sites, he
    40        stated:  It could be, yes, it is certainly not a problem.
    41
    42        Now, this is not anybody; this is the person who is in
    43        charge, he is the head of purchasing, including packaging,
    44        for McDonald's in Northern Europe.  And I think this is a
    45        feature of the case, that -- and it may be so normal that
    46        it seems acceptable that a company should be able to
    47        portray themselves in a -- put over an image about what
    48        they stand for and what they do and what the effect of it
    49        is, while denying that the criticisms that are made have
    50        any credence.
    51
    52        At one point in the advertising section you said "well,
    53        that is what advertising is about", kind of thing, that,
    54        you know, that the point is ----
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   That was not an indication that I approved
    57        of advertising in the context of this case or that I am a
    58        great fan of it at all.
    59
    60   MR. MORRIS:   So the fact that something is general in our

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