Day 009 - 08 Jul 94 - Page 12
1
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I ask you why they are called "pulp
2 trays"?
A. The reason they are called pulp trays, I have been to
3 all the suppliers who have made pulp trays for McDonald's
in the United States. They use exclusively newspapers,
4 for example; newspapers come into the plant. They are put
into a big blender, I will call it, and it is pulped,
5 blended. What you end up with is a pulp slurry. That is
simply, I will call it, it is baked -- it is baked into
6 the form of a tray that you see. That is why we call it a
"pulp tray".
7
MR. MORRIS: Generally are they considered to be packaging i.e.
8 they would be disposed of in bins, would they, or would
they be returned to the counter generally?
9 A. They would be disposed of. Let me finish our history
of recycle paper usage. Another item that we historically
10 have used recycled content in, including post-consumer
paper, is napkins. In terms of our exact usage of
11 post-consumer napkins I cannot given a firm date. Our
largest supplier in the United States has been Ford
12 Howard. When I started at Perseco in 1988, I can tell you
they had 40 per cent of the business of McDonald's
13 napkins. I can tell you that they used pretty much all
recycled content in the napkins they supplied to
14 McDonald's.
15 Q. Post-consumer?
A. No, let me finish. They supplied all their napkins
16 with recycled content. On average, it probably averaged
30 per cent post-consumer. The balance would have been
17 preconsumer. Ford Howard's use -- McDonald's has always
used napkins from the very beginning. McDonald's use of
18 Ford Howard probably goes back to again the 1960's, but I
would have to check our history on that. So, again a long
19 history of using recycled content in napkins, but the
other suppliers use virgin material to a large degree.
20
Q. For napkins?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. I am just trying see that of the 40 per cent supplied by
Ford Howard for the napkins, of that 40 per cent, 70 per
23 cent was preconsumer and 30 per cent was post-consumer
recycled content?
24 A. Yes, that is absolutely correct. The other suppliers
of napkins compose 60 per cent of the business. I cannot
25 tell you here what portion they use in terms of recycled
content. I would have to research that further. It would
26 not be a significant amount. The other item we have
historically used in terms of recycled content are the
27 Happy Meal cartons.
28 I cannot tell you when we started Happy Meal promotions
etc. within the McDonald's system. But I can tell you
29 that whenever we started that we would have used recycled
content in them. The largest supplier we used is called
30 Jefferson Smurfitt, and they have always used a
combination of preconsumer and post-consumer in the paper
