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1. I am the Director of Environmental Affairs for McDonald's Corporation.
2. I have worked in the McDonald's system since 1983 when I joined Perlman-Rocque one of McDonald's distributors. In 1988 I joined the Porseco company {"Perseco"), which provides a complete purchasing service of consumer packaging to McDonald's worldwide with the exception of Canada, Australia and Japan. This service is provided exclusively for McDonald's. At Perseco I was responsible for managing projects relating to resource reduction, recycling and other waste management alternatives. Whilst there I was involved in the presentation given by McDonald's to the Packaging Standards Committee of the Source Reduction Council of the Coalition of North Eastern Governors ("CONEC") in 1990. For six months in 1990 I was part of the Joint task formed by McDonald's and the Environmental Defense Fund ("EDF") which was set up to consider the ways in which McDonald's could reduce solid waste.
3. I joined McDonald's Corporation in 1991 as the Director of Environmental Affairs. In this position my responsibilities included co-ordinating McDonald's recycling initiatives across the country and working on waste reduction initiatives.
4. I am a graduate of North Western University's MBA programme.
5. McDonald's approach to its packaging, recycling and waste has evolved over a number of years as a response to changing environmental concerns. Up until the mid 1970's McDonald's used paper board packaging for its large sandwich products but because of the serious concern from environmentalists about the destruction of trees, water pollution and the high use of energy involved in manufacturing paper McDonald's undertook a revaluation of its paper packaging choice. In 1974 McDonald's commissioned the Stanford Research Institute to carry out a study comparing the environmental impact of paperboard as against foam packaging. The study concluded that, considering all aspects from manufacture through to disposal, polystyrene may be superior to paperboard from an environmental standpoint. In the light of this report McDonald's converted some of its food packaging from paperboard to polystyrene foam.
6. AS part of McDonald's continual assessment of its packaging in 1991 it commissioned a report by Franklin Associates Limited on its sandwich packaging. The report concluded that from an environmental standpoint paper wraps were superior to polystyrene foam, the major reason for this being that the change to paper wraps would result in a substantial reduction in the volume of the packaging. Consequently in the USA and in a number of other countries McDonald's have converted from polystyrene foam to paper wraps.
7. In 1985 and 1986 a number of scientific studies were published identifying the potential environmental problems which resulted from the use of CFCs. After carefully considering the matter, and out of concern for the Earth's ozone layer, in August 1987, McDonald's led the food service industry in insisting that its suppliers stop using CFC's in manufacturing its foam packaging. By late 1988 CFC's were no longer used in the packaging in the USA and by August 1990 they had been phased out in our packaging worldwide. CFC's were replaced either by HCFC's or hydrocarbons. HCFC's represent a 9% reduction in ozone depletion compared to CFC's and hydrocarbons have no known ozone depletion qualities. However McDonald's did not stop there and we are gradually phasing out the use of HCFC's altogether. It was obviously not possible to do this immediately because of the practical consideration such as the major capital expenditure which our suppliers would incur in changing the manufacturing process. The present position is that polystyrene made with HCFC's is only used in 7 out of the 66 countries in which McDonald's operates. Thus out of approximately 13,000 McDonald's restaurants worldwide polystyrene made with HCFC's is used in less than 150 restaurants. HCFC's are no longer used in the USA, Latin America or Canada and in Europe, only Turkey still uses polystyrene packaging made with HCFC22. The main area where polystyrene made with HCF's is still used is in Asia Pacific. This is partly because there is no viable alternative blowing agent. Both butane and pentane can only be used in countries where there are high safety standards because of their volatility and in many of the Asian countries safety standards are not sufficiently high to provide adequate protection.
8. By the 1990's one of the key environmental issues had become the disposal of solid waste. In the USA in particular there is a shortage of landfill capacity. The number of landfill sites has dwindled to about a third in the last 10 years to approximately 6,000 and by the mid 1990's it is expected that about half of these will be closed.
9. The average McDonald's restaurant produces about 1401bs of packaging on premises waste per day which equates to approximately 0.07 lbs of waste per customer served. For a number of years McDonald's has been considering ways to reduce waste and has been working hard to participate in solutions to the solid waste problem. Most experts, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agree that the best approach to managing solid waste is to reduce the packaging we use for our products. McDonald's has introduced a number of packaging reduction ideas covering the restaurants and the packing in which our products are served to our customers. Specific examples of packaging reductions include the following;
(1) in 1978 the volume of the sandwich wrap was decreased from 20 lbs test weight to 15 lbs test weight, a packaging reduction of more than three million lbs per year,
(2) in 19 corrugated dividers were removed from our cup packaging, a total packaging reduction of two million lbs per year;
(3) in 1983 the heav paper/foam hot cup was replaced with a light fo cup, apackaging reduction of more that nine million lbs;and
(4) a new bulk soft drink distribution system was recently introduced. Previously, the soft drink mix was shipped to some of our restaurants as a syrup i cardboard containers with water and carbon dioxide added at the stores. With the new system the syrup is pumped directly from delivery trucks into tanks inside the restaurants, thus involving no disposable packages. This saves approximately two million lbs of packaging each year.
These examples plus the many other initiatives introduced by McDonald's have reduced our yearly packaging by millions of lbs and we are considering our packaging all the time to increase the reduction.
10. In 1989 McDonald's launched the largest ever polystyrene recycling program involving more than 1000 of our restaurants across the USA. At the restaurant the polystyrene packaging was separated into separate bins then sent to a plastic recycler where it was made into everyday useful items. The program ceased in October 1990 as by then McDonald's had switched from polystyrene foam sandwich packaging to paper wraps thereby substantially reducing the volume of polystyrene used. In addition, McDonald's found that the extent of customer participation in the program wan not very high and the quality of the separation in the restaurants was not good.
11. McDonald's is currently the largest user of recycled paper products in the quick service restaurant industry. More than $100m annually is being spent by McDonald's on recycled paper, including napkins, drink trays, tray liners and Happy Meal boxes. This figure has increased from about $60m in 1990. Presently almost half of the paper and paperboard products used by McDonald's in the USA is made from recycled paper. This percentage has increased since 1990 when the figure was between 15% and 20%.
12. By 1990, whilst many people were involved in recycling the major problem was the lack of people buying recycled products. McDonald's decided to take the lead in creating a market for recycled products by utilising its considerable purchasing power and in that year we created McRecycle USA. This was a program that committed us to spending an additional $100m each year above and beyond the packaging we already purchased on recycled products for use in the construction, remodelling and operations of McDonald's restaurants. The aim of the program was to excite an economic demand for recycled products. McDonald's recognized that in order for recycling efforts to be developed a market needed to be established for recycled products and this was why we publicly committed ourselves to purchasing recycled materials. McDonald's identified dozens of items which we currently purchased that could be made with recycled products and told manufacturers that if they could make the product using recycled material we would purchase it as long as it met with our quality specifications and was competitively priced. Since 1990 the McRecycle USA program has identified more than 500 recycled product suppliers. A list of these suppliers, and the products they manufacture, is kept at Oakbrook and has been shared with more than 200 organisations around the USA, including the Federal and State Governments. We now use more than 200 recycled products in our restaurants and many of these are identified in the specifications for McDonald's standard buildings. Since commencing this program McDonald's has purchased more than $600m worth of recycled products and in 1991 as recognition for the McRecycle campaign was awarded the National Recycling Coalitions' Corporate Leadership Award.
13. AS part of Our Commitment to waste reduction, McDonald's took part in the discussions undertaken by the Source Reduction Council in 1990. The Source Reduction Council was made up of representatives of the North-Eastern States governments, environmental groups and major corporations. McDonald's was asked by the Source Reduction Council to evaluate our packaging practices and to implement voluntary goals to maximise packaging source reductions which we did.
14. In August 1990 McDonald's joined forces with the Environmental Defence Fund ("EDF"), one of the USA's leading environmental research and advocacy organisations to find ways to reduce solid waste throughout the entire McDonald's system, including suppliers and distributors, through source reduction, reuse, recycling and composting. A joint task force was set up comprising four members from McDonald's and three from EDF and over a six month period the task force examined in detail McDonald's materials use in the light of solid waste issues in the USA. The project produced a corporate Waste Reduction Policy and a comprehensive Waste Reduction Action Plan containing 42 discrete initiatives, pilot projects and tests in the areas of source reduction, reuse, recycling and composting for McDonald's to undertake. Subsequently McDonald's has maintained frequent contact with EDF, reporting to them on our progress in assaying out the Action Plan and also on initiatives introduced by us. Initially there were 42 initiatives in the Action Plan but this subsequently expanded to 80. Of those more than 40 have now been introduced. This includes converting all sandwich polystyrene foam containers to paper-based wraps thereby achieving a 90% volume reduction in packaging and introducing the use of unbleached 100% recycled carry out bags. In recognition of our efforts in this regard McDonald's was awarded in l991 the inaugural Presidential Environment and Conservation Challenge Award.
15. We have adopted a similar approach to waste reduction and recycling in many of the other countries in which McDonald's operates although the solutions have to be tailored to local problems and concerns. Some examples of which are as follows-:
a. In 1990 we commenced a 'Collect and Process' project in Holland that offers a total solution to the waste problem. In the kitchen the McDonald's crew separate five products for recycling, namely, corrugated, plastic, used shortening, food waste and residue. The used shortening is picked up by a recycling company which has its own transport system. The four other products are collected by McDonald's recycling service trucks. The trucks have four compartments in which the plastic, corrugated, food waste and residue are deposited. The products are then transported to various companies where they are processed into different products;
b. in Brazil we have reduced the thickness of several of our packaging items including sundae cups, drink carriers and cup lids and all the plastic materials used In our restaurants that have no direct contact with food;
c. in Spain the traymats are now printed on paper which is bleached without chlorine, which has a weight of 60 grams par square metre instead of 80 grams per square metre as was the case when chlorine was used. This has resulted in a saving of 14,000 kgs. of paper per year as well as avoiding the use of chlorine;
d. In Germany we have introduced a number of packaging initiatives. Napkins are now made from 100% recycled peter and have been reduced in size by 18% which has resulted in an annual saving of 204 tons of paper. Plastic stirrers have been replaced by wooden ones and the polystyrene sundae cup has been changed to edible waffle resulting in a total saving of 200 tons of polystyrene per year;
e. in Japan the main environmental issue has been waste reduction. Most of the restaurants separate all cardboard boxes and tin cans for recycling and all used paper documents from every store are collected for recycling. We have also introduced a number of hydraulic garbage compactors at our restaurants;
f. an over the counter waste separation programme has been introduced in nearly all our restaurants in New Zealand.
| date signed: |
June 4, 1993
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| status: |
Appeared in court
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exhibits: Not applicable/ available
transcripts of court appearances:
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