The "PR" Department,
McDonald's Restaurants Ltd,
11-59, High Road,
East Finchley,
LONDON. N2 8AW.
17th October, 1990.
Dear Sir or Madam,
"Fact Sheet" No 4
Now here's a thing: my "green" friend, Mr Daley and I visited your Carlisle restaurant the other week and, during our Chicken Mc sandwiches (in these days of "mad cow" disease, we don't like to risk the beef), we took the opportunity to read your various "fact sheets" which you provide free-of-charge.
Personally, I was very impressed with your efforts to clean up your act on the environmental front (and not before time), but my friend - a man with a bit of a chip (or, as you might say, French fry) on his shoulder when it comes to big companies' using "green" propaganda to boost their profits - claimed that your "fact sheets" were a load of hype.
He took particular exception to "fact sheet" No 4 ("Packaging - The Facts") in which you claim "that non-biodegradable matter aids decomposition in land fills by forming air pockets, vital to the degradation process". He reckons that there is plenty-enough other non-biodegradable junk in the land fills without McDonald's offloading all their rubbish into them as well. He also pointed out that you claim that your foam packaging is "recyclable", but you do not say that it is "recycled".
Could you put my mind at ease: am I correct in saying that my friend is wrong and that, without McDonald's foam packaging there would be almost no non-degradable rubbish in our tips? Is it not the case that, without McDonald's, our rubbish dumps would be piling ever-higher with semi-degraded biodegradable rubbish? In addition, can you assure me that your foam packaging is made out of recycled foam?
Yours sincerely,