Day 075 - 17 Jan 95 - Page 31

     
     1        A.  I was en route to a conference with the American
     2        equivalent of the Tidy Britain Group which is called Keep
     3        America Beautiful and I stopped off to discuss these
     4        matters with people in McDonald's, in Chicago.
     5
     6   Q.   What exactly did you discuss with the company in Chicago?
     7        A.  It was at the point where McDonald's were embarking or
     8        about to embark on a programme of -- I am trying to think
     9        of what the catch phrase was, but the effect of it was that
    10        they were seeking to send nothing to landfill.
    11
    12   Q.   That was in America?
    13        A.  Yes.
    14
    15   Q.   When was that?
    16        A.  Gosh!  I cannot be more accurate than something in the
    17        middle 80s, I would think, 84 or 85.  Sorry, it would be
    18        about 1990, I guess, after I had taken over the Group and
    19        been there a little while.
    20
    Q.   How were they going about diverting waste from landfill?
    22        A.  Well, they were seeking to use as many materials as
    23        they could that they felt were recyclable in one way or
    24        another, I think principally moving to paper products away
    25        from plastic products.
    26
    27   Q.   From a environment/index.html">litter point of view, is paper better than plastic
    28        then?
    29        A.  Not really.  From a environment/index.html">litter point of view, it is equally
    30        offensive.  I mean, I do not subscribe to the view, you
    31        see, that you should try to make things as biodegradable as
    32        possible because that means they just simply lie around in
    33        the environment and I think that is bad news anyway.  I
    34        mean, plastic and paper are equally a problem as environment/index.html">litter in
    35        terms of environment/index.html">litter.
    36
    37   Q.   But, at the end of the day, and you have accepted that some
    38        environment/index.html">litter is not going to get picked up, is it not better that
    39        it will rot away eventually than it is going to remain in
    40        the landscape or in the seas for ever?
         A.  Yes, in those terms.
    42
    43   Q.   The steps that were being taken in the USA, did you ask
    44        them about why they were not implementing the same steps in
    45        this country?
    46        A.  No.  I was merely discussing over there what they were
    47        proposing to do in the context of the American scene
    48        because I was quite interested in what the outcome in terms
    49        of the volumes of environment/index.html">litter were likely to be in relation to
    50        their activities. 
    51 
    52   Q.   What were the volumes of environment/index.html">litter then? 
    53        A.  I did not get any satisfactory data from that
    54        conversation, and nor have I subsequently in terms of
    55        American practice.
    56
    57   Q.   So they were not able to tell you how much environment/index.html">litter they
    58        generated?
    59        A.  No.
    60