Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 21


     
     1        Also we have now heard regarding Brazil from Morganti, the
     2        director of the hamburger factory supplying McDonald's,
     3        that when we finally got the supply sources, which he says
     4        supplied McDonald's beef, that some of those supply sources
     5        are based on what we have heard is ex rainforest land in
     6        the State of Gioias.  And regarding Costa Rica, he had Edie
     7        Bensilum's statement that said how they were using ex
     8        rainforest land in Costa Rica, deforested as late as ten
     9        years before they started operations in Costa Rica, within
    10        ten years, and also that the majority of the beef supplied
    11        came from ranches established I think in the fifties and
    12        sixties.  I can't remember now exact details.  So on three
    13        of the major planks, Costa Rica, Brazil and exports,
    14        McDonald's have made admissions.
    15
    16        And just to say something very briefly to -- again, we are
    17        dealing with this, that we should have, you know, thrown in
    18        the towel as soon as we saw McDonald's witness statements,
    19        that we obviously knew it was all wrong, that we have
    20        brought substantial authoritative and experienced witnesses
    21        on this issue, the director of Friends of the Earth UK,
    22        Charles Secret, and other professors and experts on the
    23        Amazon and on Latin American tropical forests and they have
    24        backed up our case.
    25
    26        If I can move on to packaging.  Again, the criticisms of
    27        McDonald's have been in the public domain.  We have heard
    28        how there was a big campaign against their use of CFC's in
    29        America in the mid to late 1980s.  And criticism of CFC's
    30        usage, certain aerosols, goes back to the late seventies,
    31        as far as we have heard in this courtroom.
    32
    33        As regards environment/index.html">litter, it is just basically common sense.
    34        People can see with their own eyes.  And the wastefulness
    35        of packaging that has a shelf life -- not a shelf life, has
    36        a use life of five minutes, in some cases only thirty
    37        seconds, as people discard all kind of the paraphernalia
    38        that comes with the food.  It is generally considered to be
    39        wasteful and obviously McDonald's, again through the
    40        admissions of their own representatives and very
    41        interestingly of Mr. Ashworth or Professor Ashworth of the
    42        Tidy Britain group, who in the witness box conceded that it
    43        was a losing battle against environment/index.html">litter and that McDonald's was
    44        in the top one or two percent if identifiable environment/index.html">litter in the
    45        streets, top one or two percent companies causing the
    46        environment/index.html">litter or where the environment/index.html">litter emanates from.
    47
    48        And the other witnesses from McDonald's all accept that
    49        packaging, the sheer volume of it and the contents of it,
    50        is damaging to the environment.  That is why they say they 
    51        are trying to look at change, reduce the volume and content 
    52        of their packaging, precisely because they accept our case 
    53        that it is a bad thing and that of course any responsible
    54        organisation would try to reduce, re-use and re-cycle
    55        plastic and paper packaging.
    56
    57        Of course, we have also brought our own witnesses including
    58        Ann Link, who is trying to get a bill through Parliament to
    59        enforce waste prevention procedures on a local level
    60        throughout the country, through local councils, I believe.

Prev Next Index