Day 008 - 07 Jul 94 - Page 17

     
     1        reduce you do not have to think about the next one.  If
              you reuse, you do not have to think about the third?
     2        A.  It is logical.  However, one of the issues is that not
              everybody understands that and that is one thing we are
     3        constantly working with -- is that, at least in the United
              States, there tends to be an emphasis amongst the
     4        consuming public that recycling is the most important part
              and we say, no, it is the third on the hierarchy; source
     5        reduction is the most important.
 
     6   MR. RAMPTON:  May I borrow his Lordship's thought and put it
              like this:  You cannot reuse or recycle that which was not
     7        there in the first place?
              A.  Correct and, as an example, if you reduce packaging by
     8        80 per cent, that is 80 per cent that is never made, never
              has production waste, never has post consumer waste.
     9
         Q.   One other thing:  It might occur to the ordinary person
    10        that McDonald's could save an awful lot of disposable
              material which needs to be disposed of, if instead of
         using one-off items made of polystyrene, foam or paper,
              instead of using that sort of disposable materials in its
    12        stores, and so on and so forth, it used what we use at
              home, that is to say, cups, saucers, glasses, knives and
    13        forks made of durable and long lasting material, such as
              china, metal and so on.  Is this a question which
    14        McDonald's have studied?
              A.  We have studied that question very thoroughly.
    15
         Q.   What is your conclusion?
    16        A.  On the whole, you cannot simply transfer your
              practices at home into a restaurant operation that serves
    17        some 2,000 people a day -- and we studied this question in
              depth with our -- our first partnership that we had with
    18        the Environmental Defense Fund was initiated in 1990 and
              we called it a waste reduction action plan.  One of the
    19        major topic areas we discussed in this partnership had to
              do with the whole issue of reusability in McDonald's
    20        restaurants.  The reason it does not have the impact that
              one might think it would have is, No. 1, in analysing
         McDonald's waste 80 per cent of our waste is behind the
              counter.  I think this was illustrated in the Big Mac
    22        packaging, example, "McDonald's versus Home", because we
              are very efficient in terms of our food usage, but we use
    23        transport packaging and tertiary packaging -- that is
              packaging you never see as a consumer but it is behind the
    24        counter.  There are more opportunities to make an impact
              on the reusable issue behind the counter and actually make
    25        more solid waste contributions than there are over the
              counter. 
    26 
         Q.   I understand that.  If you had china plates, metal knives 
    27        and forks, glass or plastic glasses in the restaurants
              they would have to be cleaned, would they not?
    28        A.  Yes, from an environmental perspective, we have
              analysed this.
    29
         Q.   What is your answer?
    30        A.  We have seen no evidence to show that reusables would
              be better for the environment.  Let me explain why we came