Day 075 - 17 Jan 95 - Page 25

     
     1        companies before that ---
     2        A.  No.
     3
     4   Q.   -- to clean up any mess?
     5        A.  No.
     6
     7   MS. STEEL:  Professor Ashworth, are there problems with environment/index.html">litter
     8        other than just the kind of fact that people do not like
     9        looking at it?
    10        A.  There are concerns from time to time expressed about
    11        the consequences of environment/index.html">litter.  In the course of my academic
    12        work, we have looked at (and tried to conduct research
    13        into) health hazards associated with it without any really
    14        conclusive evidence coming out of those studies.  There is
    15        a -- it depends, obviously, in the nature of the environment/index.html">litter.
    16        There are some items of environment/index.html">litter that are a matter of
    17        concern, things like hypodermic syringes, things of that
    18        kind, and clinical waste that gets disposed of
    19        irresponsibly.  I have mentioned earlier that principal
    20        items thrown out of car windows, I mean, the greatest
         increase of those is -- perhaps a diversion -- the greatest
    22        increase of materials disposed out of car windows in recent
    23        years has been disposable nappies.  That is a matter of
    24        concern to us because there are, obviously, problems
    25        associated with that kind of environment/index.html">litter that need to be
    26        addressed.
    27
    28   Q.   What about problems in terms of wildlife and things like
    29        that?  Is it right there have been studies about wildlife
    30        eating, say, packaging remains with food on it and then
    31        starving to death?
    32        A.  Yes.  The items of environment/index.html">litter that can be a problem to
    33        wildlife are containers into which small animals crawl and
    34        cannot escape.  Other items, principally plastic items,
    35        that have been swallowed by animals in mistake for food
    36        which has consequently caused trouble.  There are those
    37        sorts of problems associated with environment/index.html">litter.
    38
    39   Q.   That problem with swallowing, that is a problem
    40        particularly with polystyrene, is that right, or is it with
         paper packaging as well?
    42        A.  It can be a number of the things; it can be various
    43        kinds of plastic and it can be paper as well.
    44
    45   Q.   When you said "plastic" that includes polystyrene?
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Are you aware of polystyrene, particularly,
    48        or would you just include that?
    49        A.  I would just include that as a plastic element.  The
    50        greater problems are usually associated with PET bottles 
    51        and plastic sheet in one form or another. 
    52 
    53   MS. STEEL:  If there are food remains on the packaging, does
    54        that make it all the more attractive to certain animals and
    55        more likely that they will eat it?
    56        A.  I imagine it does, but I am not an expert on that.
    57
    58   Q.   There are problems with environment/index.html">litter blowing from streets into
    59        rivers and into the sea and things like that; is that
    60        right?