Day 010 - 11 Jul 94 - Page 41
1 A. I cannot speculate on that.
2 Q. OK. Moving on from environment/index.html">litter -- just one point, do you
recall during this campaign that McDonald's took the
3 problem of environment/index.html">litter as part of their responsibility or what
was their approach to it?
4 A. Well, the environment/index.html">litter problem, as far as I am aware,
McDonald's never addressed directly the environment/index.html">litter issue. In
5 a general sense, there are organisations that are set up
such as organisations like Keep America Beautiful which
6 focus on the environment/index.html">litter issue exclusively and, in general,
have argued for education of people so that they do not
7 throw things in the street.
8 But, in essence, the way that issue is framed, the
responsibility is upon the consumer and is not placed any
9 further up the stream of the product life-span. In
general, that we can characterise the way McDonald's used
10 foam in its restaurants as part of a means to externalise
some of its costs, costs associated with reusables or
11 costs associated with disposal of materials that were
heavier.
12
Q. So you are saying it became someone else's problem once it
13 left the store, basically?
A. That is right.
14
Q. Moving on from that: You touched upon briefly earlier on
15 the recycling and recyclability considerations and issue.
Can you just say something about that as a serious
16 proposition for dealing with disposal problems?
A. Well, in general, recycling is a preferable means of
17 dealing with otherwise what would be a waste product, but
in a more general sense there are actually three Rs and
18 I think they have been alluded to in earlier testimony
there.
19
There is reduction or reduce, then there is reuse and then
20 there is recycle; recycling being the last option of
preference. So that with regard to the styrene, the
21 polystyrene foam issue, the matter, the issues we were
raising were associated with the use of a product that had
22 problems across the span of its life cycle, and that the
solution was not going to be effective if what McDonald's
23 proposed to do was simply recycle the food product,
I mean, the foam packaging product; that recycling was not
24 the solution, in our view, to the issues that we were
raising.
25
Q. Right. Are you aware that McDonald's had some kind of
26 recycling programme on a certain scale?
A. Well, as I have said, in 1989 members of the
27 organisation met with Shelby Yastrow at which point he
announced that that would be McDonald's choice, and that
28 they would adopt a recycling programme for the styrofoam.
29 Q. Their main choice?
A. The meeting was discussed with Mr. Yastrow, what
30 McDonald's options were, what they were going to do and
whether or not they would be willing to meet with a number
