Day 008 - 07 Jul 94 - Page 36
1 Q. From what point of view?
A. For our customer usage, for the sandwich, for crew
2 operations etc., and what we were pursuing -----
3 Q. Pleas pause there. Sorry, I do not mean to interrupt but
it is important that I just fit this in now. Is it also
4 cost effective in packaging material?
A. Yes.
5
Q. So it is attractive from all those three points of view?
6 A. All of them. So, I already described our recycling
efforts of polystyrene, because again, going back to the
7 whole landfill issue in the United States, we wanted to
try to minimise our impact of using polystyrene foam
8 packaging. Therefore, we were pursuing very aggressively
the recycling of polystyrene foam packaging.
9
At the same time, the Perseco company was pursuing (as
10 they always do) alternative packaging options. Actually,
it was a longer developmental chain. We had spent two to
11 three years developing this new, I call it a quilted wrap,
you can call it a layered wrap. We had developed a very
12 new technology, our suppliers had, they had brought it to
us.
13
It took a lot of time for us to evaluate it, to go through
14 the test kitchen, to go through the one store test, to go
through ten store test. We have a normal testing process
15 that we go through. It was during this same polystyrene
recycling test that we were also testing alternative
16 packaging.
17 When we formed the partnership with the Environmental
Defence Fund, all their information was laid on the
18 table: We have polystyrene foam, all of its pros and
cons; its recyclability, its difficulty to recycle. We
19 have the layered wrap, all of its pros and cons.
20 Then we have the American situation in terms of what our
environment is like, what the issues are, the landfill
21 crisis, as they called it back then, and we looked at all
that information as McDonald's and made a decision to
22 switch chiefly due to the source reduction achieved
through volume reduction by changing the paper wraps.
23
Q. Right.
24
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Could I just interrupt and ask one thing
25 while it is on my mind: How high a profile does the
Environmental Defence Fund have in the States? I mean,
26 most people who bother to read anything at all in this
country have heard of Greenpeace and Friends of the
27 Earth. Then, no doubt, there are various other groups of
people whose particular interests is the environment. But
28 how do I get the feel of the Environmental Defence Fund?
I can read what is in the first paragraph?
29 A. They are the top five. They are one of the top five.
The reason you have not heard of them versus -- a bigger
30 one in the United States is the World Wild Life Fund,
National Wild Life Federation, Greenpeace is also larger,
