Day 011 - 12 Jul 94 - Page 06
1 questioning to go here with regard to incineration is
whether or not what is released -- or actually whether or
2 not incineration reduces the volume of polystyrene foam,
and my point is very simply that it merely transfers the
3 actual substances in the product either to the ash or to
the air.
4
Q. The reason I picked this up, and I may be wrong because
5 I am coming new to these matters, is because you refer to
polystyrene foam; if you had said the polystyrene, then
6 I would follow the point you are seeking to make but, as
I understand it, quite a proportion of polystyrene, the
7 quantity of polystyrene foam is the little bubbles in it.
8 MR. RAMPTON: I can help your Lordship and perhaps Mr. Atkinson
can. This is an answer to the question from your Lordship
9 by Mr. Langert when he was giving his evidence in chief on
Thursday. Your Lordship had a document -- I cannot, I am
10 afraid, tell precisely what it was, but it gave a figure
of 93 per cent air in polystyrene foam. Your Lordship
11 asked whether that was correct. Mr. Langert said it was.
Your Lordship asked: "If I have a polystyrene foam cup
12 only 7 per cent of the volume of the material of the cup
is polystyrene? Answer: That is absolutely correct".
13 I will finish -----
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will stop asking questions now but that is
the point I had in mind.
15
MR. RAMPTON: What you are talking about here in this statement
16 which you prepared for this trial, Mr. Lipsett, is the
amount of solid waste produced by McDonald's, is it not,
17 1.3 billion cubic feet of foam food packaging waste to the
nation's waste stream annually?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. That is what you are talking about?
A. That is as it reads.
20
Q. You have left out of account the effects of compaction in
21 landfill?
A. I have not mentioned compaction in this statement.
22
Q. Is this another of the passages -- we looked at some
23 yesterday -- in this statement which is supposed to
present a worst case scenario so far as McDonald's is
24 concerned?
A. I think that it could very well be a moderate or under
25 estimation of the impact of McDonald's, the impact on
landfills. As I said, when you crush foam, as you put it,
26 in compaction, that is not an even process. It is not
fair to assume that everything that you put underneath
27 heavy equipment in a landfill is squished like a pancake.
28 When things are squished in a landfill, they are squished
in various ways which means there is space taken up by the
29 air that is trapped within the garbage that is under the
equipment, so that the volume might actually, that we have
30 calculated here, might be an under estimation of how much
space it could take up. It is also true that foam is a
