Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 18, 1990 TAG: 9004180562
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/8 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
McDonald's Corp. announced Tuesday that it plans to spend $100 million a year, about one-fourth of its construction budget, on recycled materials when building new outlets or renovating existing ones. It dubbed the program McRecycle USA.
"We think there need to be markets created for recycled materials," Edward Rensi, president of McDonald's USA, said in a telephone interview from Oak Brook, Ill. "We decided to create a market."
Rensi said that in addition to seeking out recycled products when building new restaurants, the company plans soon to use recycled newsprint for carryout bags at about 500 outlets. If it works, the use of newsprint will be expanded.
"They're not going to be as white as we necessarily would like, but they're going to be fully serviceable . . . " Rensi said.
He said McDonald's will seek out suppliers of recycled building materials through a toll-free telephone number.
The uses of recycled materials are numerous and not expected to cost significantly more, Rensi said. "We have a lot of opportunities."
He said some of the possible uses of recycled plastics and other materials are as barriers to keep cars from going onto the curb in parking lots, building insulation, mop buckets, menu boards, chairs, tables, signs and playground equipment.
Earlier this year, McDonald's announced a pilot program in some New England outlets that promotes the recycling of polystyrene food containers and other plastics.
"We think [the program] is working very well, but it can work a lot better because we've only got 250 restaurants on the program right now. We hope to add about 25 restaurants a week and get up to 500 very soon," Rensi said.
Eventually the company hopes to expand the program to all of its restaurants.
But Rensi said McDonald's, which serves 22 million people daily worldwide and is one of the largest users of plastic food containers, has no plans to shift away from using plastics, which do not degrade in landfills.
A number of communities have begun to consider barring the use of polystyrene containers by fast-food restaurants because of growing concerns about shrinking landfills.
Rensi maintained, however, that the polystyrene containers can be recycled, while coated paper used in food packaging often cannot.
"Paper does not do the kinds of things people think it does," he said. "You put it in a landfill and it doesn't biodegrade. Food packaging particularly doesn't biodegrade because it's wrapped in some kind of a compound . . . and you can't recycle it. It's cost-prohibitive."
by CNB