Day 293 - 04 Nov 96 - Page 22


     
     1        recycling content dramatically, it is still effectively
     2        only a very small percentage, in terms of post-customer,
     3        post-consumer content.
     4
     5        There are just a couple of things I wanted from
     6        Robert Langert's statement.  In paragraph 14, towards the
     7        end of that paragraph, he noted that converting the
     8        sandwich Polystyrene foam containers to paper-based wraps
     9        achieved a 90 percent volume reduction, which seems to be
    10        far greater than replacing them with cartons, paper
    11        cartons.  The paper wraps, clearly, are a tenth of the
    12        volume, which is significant in terms of landfill.
    13
    14        Then he goes through various countries, and finishes up
    15        showing how, for example, in Holland, on 15A of his
    16        statement, his first statement, he talks about how the
    17        workers at McDonald's help with doing recycling in Holland;
    18        and, apparently, there is some kind of recycling going on
    19        in Japan.  That is point E.  Then he mentions -- I did not
    20        ask him about this, unfortunately -- the New Zealand
    21        Over-the-counter Waste Separation Programme (which we
    22        brought in a press cutting of), saying how that had been
    23        abandoned after being exposed as being a fraud, that they
    24        were dumping all the material, not recycling it.  I don't
    25        think we had that information until he left the witness
    26        box.
    27
    28        Just a few more quotes on the USA, and then I will be
    29        finished with that.  It will really just be the forest
    30        cover issue for this afternoon and anything else which
    31        I may have missed out.
    32
    33        Persico does not supply Canada, Japan, or Australia, or did
    34        not when the evidence was being given.  I can't remember
    35        exactly what day that came out, but I am sure McDonald's
    36        will accept that.  They are all very substantial McDonald's
    37        countries.  I think Japan has over 1,000 McDonald's stores;
    38        and, obviously, Canada and Australia, as well, are
    39        substantial.
    40
    41        So, that is one thing that goes towards the -- when we are
    42        going to consider the forest cover area, that whole
    43        countries are not taken into consideration in the
    44        calculation that was being made before.
    45
    46        Robert Langert said that Persico was the supplier for
    47        McDonald's packaging in over 60 countries.  I don't know if
    48        that helps us to identify that there may be other
    49        countries, when he gave his evidence, that also were not
    50        covered by Persico, but it seems likely.  As we have heard, 
    51        even within countries that are supplied by Persico, there 
    52        are whole areas that are not covered, for whatever reason. 
    53
    54        Actually, there is something I did not mention with
    55        Casper Van Erp, and also Mr. Langert; that they both
    56        accepted -- and Mr. Kouchoucos -- all three of them
    57        accepted that McDonald's had no policy on the forest
    58        sources of paper pulp for their packaging, which obviously
    59        does not show any environmental concern.
    60

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