Day 008 - 07 Jul 94 - Page 25
1 being much lower than the usables.
2 Q. Yes. That brings me back to something you said earlier
today, it occurred to me, is a possible explanation. You
3 must tell us whether it might be right or not. It is
this: You were telling us this morning about the
4 additional packaging requirements which you see to be
imposed on you by the concerns of the environmental health
5 officers, for example, public health officials, you might
call them. Might it be that the disposables arm of this
6 industry has got more careful about hygiene as the years
have passed?
7 A. That is very possible, because I do not know about the
reusable sit down restaurant industry, but I can speak
8 towards our industry, is that over the years our training,
our sophistication with dealing with our employees in
9 dealing with the sanitation issue has become stronger and
stronger over the years.
10
Q. Whereas, as the other problem, one should not perhaps draw
11 the inference but one might suppose that the reverse
effect had been seen and they were getting more careless?
12 A. That would be possible.
13 Q. I do not ask you to draw that inference. Can I turn now
to something different. At the next tab on in this file
14 I come to -- sorry, two tabs on No. 4 -- I am coming back
to No. 3 in a moment -- we see a document headed
15 "McDonald's Corporation Environmental Defence Fund, Waste
Reduction Task Force Executive Summary April 1991". Yes?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Will you please tell his Lordship what this document
represents, what is it?
18 A. This document represents the culmination of a six
months very formal partnership with a leading
19 environmental group in the United States called the
Environmental Defence Fund. What we set in motion in
20 August 1990 was this very special partnership that was
basically the first of its kind in the United States,
21 where a leading company like McDonald's joined in a formal
relationship with an environmental organisation.
22
Our tasks at the onset was to examine the waste management
23 practices of the McDonald's system, which included
restaurants, distribution centres and suppliers; look at
24 the global system of McDonald's in the United States and
then to make recommendations as to what can be done to
25 reduce the waste impact, the solid waste impact, at
McDonald's.
26
So this report summarises six months of intensive work.
27 We had four people representing McDonald's and three
people representing the Environmental Defence Fund. It
28 spent close to 100 per cent of their time during those six
months to examine the issues, explore the options and end
29 up making the recommendations that are set forth in this
document.
30
Q. We see from the next page in the document -- I am afraid I
