Day 010 - 11 Jul 94 - Page 13
1 never existed McDonald's would probably continue to be
using styrofoam food packaging in the United States as
2 well.
3 MR. MORRIS: If we go back to the research and analysis you
were responsible for on the problems associated with
4 styrofoam. What is the scientific name for styrofoam?
A. The scientific name for styrofoam is polystyrene
5 foam. There are a variety of different polystyrene foams
in use. The one that is for food packaging is the one
6 I have the most understanding of.
7 Q. Right. The first part of the process, presumably, would
be extraction. Just say a little about that very briefly?
8 A. Well, in the research that we conducted, I was
personally involved in, we looked at the foam
9 manufacturing process, and we looked at it from the point
of extraction in the general sense, so that we could say
10 that polystyrene foam is based on a number of petroleum
derivatives, that petroleum derivatives comes from crude
11 oil which is extracted from the earth. That process of
extracting these materials from the earth produces waste,
12 some of which is now coming under increasing scrutiny in
the United States because of its hazardous nature,
13 so-called oil field waste; at that point of extraction
there are problems associated with the mining or
14 extraction of petro chemicals, crude oil.
15 Q. What is the next stage of the main stage of the process?
A. Well, in terms of manufacturing polystyrene foam, once
16 crude oil has been extracted it is necessary to crack it,
to split it into various components, then subsequently to
17 recombine various products in controlled reactions; so
that in manufacturing polystyrene foam, you need to rely
18 on certain chemical precursors, benzine or ethyl benzine.
From that point styrene, and from there you create
19 polystyrene.
20 The processes are very technical to describe and they are
encompassed in a wide variety of literature, particular
21 literature associated with food packaging. The
Encyclopaedia of Food Packaging is an example of such. In
22 our research, we reviewed such material. I would refer to
material which we circulated widely under the heading the
23 McFact Pack to a document in the section that starts
Polystyrene Fact Sheet.
24
Q. If you could refer to that, if everyone has a copy of this
25 -- it is actually No. 5 on the list, the third
supplementary list.
26
MR. RAMPTON: I have to say in relation to these documents --
27 I hope I say this with an eye on the future -- it does
absolutely no good at all for the smooth progress of the
28 case to dump on my lap, as it were, at 29 minutes past ten
as the witness is being called a stack of papers like
29 this, most of which I have never seen before.
30 MR. MORRIS: We only got these when Mr. Lipsett arrived.
