Day 010 - 11 Jul 94 - Page 07
1 specific item, as in the same fashion one would refer to a
vacuum cleaner in Great Britain as a hoover; styrofoam is
2 used to refer to a particular type of product. In this
case what we were referring to specifically was the foam
3 food package.
4 Q. I think you have covered part of this, but just a little
more on how the McToxics campaign originated. I think you
5 had a series of meetings which started in November 1986;
is that right?
6 A. That is correct. The meetings came under the heading
Solid Waste Action Project and, as I have said, were
7 related to the assembly of local community leaders who
were concerned about or affected by disposal issues in
8 their own back yards, such as landfills, such as garbage
incinerators or hazardous waste incinerators. So these
9 meetings were assembled to establish and find ways to
establish common ground from both the disposal of
10 hazardous waste and solid waste issues among these
different groups.
11
In essence, the foam campaign was essentially related to
12 an effort by local community activists, by local
communities groups, as an effort to link in the public
13 mind the issues of manufacturing and disposal. So that
when we deal with a particular product, when we think
14 about in the public sense a particular product, we
understand that we are not just talking about the use of
15 the product in the middle of its life-span, but we are
also talking about the manufacturing process that goes on
16 at the beginning of the product's life-span, as well as an
understanding of problems associated with that product
17 once it has passed its useful lifetime.
18 To summarise, the idea was to bring this kind of issue
into the public view and McDonald's, as a result of its
19 own profligate use of foam food packaging, came to be the
target because of its widely recognised name, its use
20 through advertising of the foam food packaging and the
identification of this particular type of foam packaging
21 as an extremely useless and somewhat dangerous product.
22 Q. You may have mentioned this -- sorry, I am finding it
hard; obviously I am not very experienced at this.
23
MR. JUSTICE BELL: The reason I asked is unless, there may be
24 some objection from Mr. Rampton, there is, I would not
mind the witness having his statement, which we have a
25 copy of, in front of him and you taking him to the
statements which are made. You can then ask if you want
26 him to elaborate on it. Would there be any objection to
that? It is up to you.
27
MISS STEEL: We are actually fairly all right. It is just
28 sometimes, because I am nervous, I might miss some of what
he said, so I may get him to repeat something twice.
29
MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you basically going to go through the
30 order in the statement?
