Day 294 - 05 Nov 96 - Page 04

     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:   Yes, okay.  It is certainly irresponsible to use
     3        this kind of packaging, period, in terms of the effects on
     4        the environment of that kind of packaging, when it is
     5        completely useless, superfluous and certainly reusables can
     6        be made.  They don't have to use china plates, they could
     7        use plates that would not break in a thousand years if they
     8        wanted to, et cetera et cetera.  Anyway, that was dealt
     9        with by our witness Anne Link, so I wanted to flag that
    10        up.
    11
    12        The other thing is that I wanted to say a general point,
    13        last point, where McDonald's seem to have investigated
    14        recycled content, or tried to justify using paper packaging
    15        rather than Polystyrene, or the other way round, depending
    16        which country it was, and what they were using.  I would
    17        summarise this as making a virtue out of expediency, where
    18        basically they are doing what is economically advantageous,
    19        or responding to criticisms or potential legislation and
    20        then trying to present it as if they are doing it out of
         genuine concern for the environment when, in fact, they are
    22        doing the opposite in a different country.  So they should
    23        not be allowed to be making a virtue out of expediency.
    24        That is all I have to say on packaging.
    25
    26        I am moving on to the issue of food safety and food
    27        poisoning.  Now, the way I am going to deal with this --
    28        I will just explain -- is I am going to have a brief look
    29        at the fact sheet relevant sections and other relevant
    30        documents, such as the counterclaim documents, press
    31        release, and then I am going to run through our core
    32        submissions like I did before with packaging without
    33        references, but hopefully by the end of this afternoon the
    34        people that are helping us with the references will have
    35        produced a document which I can hand over tomorrow.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    38
    39   MR. MORRIS:   After I have checked it, obviously, tonight, which
    40        should mean that we should be able to finish this issue by
         tomorrow.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    44
    45   MR. MORRIS:   So starting off with the fact sheet, the main
    46        section of the fact sheet -- which of course seemed to be
    47        quite obvious -- which really spring to mind are the box
    48        'getting the chemistry right', which is part of the
    49        context really of this section.  There is no specific
    50        reference in there to ill health or food poisoning of any
    51        kind but there is a general context of dressing up of low
    52        quality food with additives.  The low quality food argument
    53        is down to the nutrition section.  I think that has been
    54        dealt with separately.
    55
    56        (Pause) Then we have got on the other side of that page
    57        under 'toy food' - 'as if to compensate for the inadequacy
    58        of their products McDonald's promote consumption of meals
    59        as a fun event', et cetera.  'Not a lot of children are
    60        interested in nutrition; even if they were, all the