Day 292 - 01 Nov 96 - Page 09
1 That, in a nutshell, is what we set out to demonstrate in
2 the case and which we think we have demonstrated
3 overwhelmingly, both from our witnesses and from McDonald's
4 own witnesses. Whether or not McDonald's cannot carry out
5 their business without some kind of damage to the
6 environment, and whether they are doing anything to
7 minimise that or are concerned about it, is really a very
8 minor issue, because the question we have to ask is: does
9 the production of mountains of packaging cause damage to
10 the environment. And the answer is plainly "Yes". And
11 McDonald's will accept that fact.
12
13 Mr. Rampton, in his opening speech, characterised the issue
14 as this, on page 33: "Is the Plaintiffs' use of resources
15 significantly detrimental to the environment?". He goes on
16 about CFCs, loss of trees or damage to forests, volume of
17 waste, and disposal of packaging and, of course, environment/index.html">litter,
18 which have been the issues throughout the case,
19 effectively.
20
21 Now, I am going to do this submission slightly differently
22 than I did the tropical forests one, by going through our
23 core evidence, without references initially, so we can see
24 the kind of general picture. Having given the core
25 evidence, I may not need to emphasise the context all the
26 time of the references that I go through.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No.
29
30 MR. MORRIS: We hope, anyway. I will come back to some of the
31 legal points about meaning and all that kind of stuff a bit
32 later on when I have had a chance to make notes on that.
33
34 The first matter I want to look at, the overall picture,
35 I think that was expressed very well by Anne Link, our
36 expert witness, who is the science coordinator of the
37 Women's Environmental Network, who are currently sponsoring
38 a Waste and Minimisation Bill in the UK Parliament. She
39 talked about the negative effects to the environment caused
40 by McDonald's packaging. She was particularly concerned
41 about dangerous chemicals and excessive amounts of energy
42 used in production processes, and also about the damage
43 caused by the disposal of discarded materials.
44
45 She criticised the sheer volume of company packaging, much
46 of it unnecessary, and the fact that McDonald's uses
47 disposable items instead of re-usables. On top of that,
48 they do not even recycle any customer waste. She said the
49 aim should be a no-waste society, and that was an
50 internationally recognised aim.
51
52 Referring to McDonald's official documents, she concluded
53 that the company, quote, is waiting until forced to change
54 by increasing environmental awareness, and, quote, could be
55 using its international structure to spread good
56 environmental ideas rather than bad ones, as at present.
57
58 Now, Edward Oakley, senior vice-president for McDonald's in
59 charge of purchasing for Northern Europe, or he was when he
60 gave evidence, and he had been there since 1984, I think,
