Mcdonald's Decision On Foam Is First Of Many

McDonald's surprise decision to phase out its signature plastic clamshell hamburger packages is just the first of an expected series of announcements in part resulting from an unusual joint effort with an environmental group.

``The move really opens the door to further changes,'' said Richard Denison, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund and the environmental organization's task-force spokesman.

``They kept our feet in the fire to look for alternate packaging, alternatives to foam,'' said Shelby Yastrow, McDonald's senior vice president in charge of environmental affairs.

``And we found the alternative and figured out how to make it work.''

McDonald's is not yet sure just what paper-based packaging will be adopted over the next two months. But the first wave of products to be affected will be the Big Mac, McD.L.T., Quarter Pounder, Egg McMuffin, Filet-O-Fish, Chicken McNuggets, the McChicken Sandwich and the Danish.

The immense fast-food chain has long been a target of environmental groups critical of what they consider wasteful and ecologically unsound packaging. The company and its clamshell - often used only for as long as it takes to walk to a table - have been widely condemned as symbols of a throw-away society.

McDonald's Corp., the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company with more than 11,000 restaurants around the world, has roughly 25 percent of the fast-food-restaurant market share.

Recently, McDonald's has moved to quiet critics by changing its ways. It now uses napkins and Happy Meal boxes made of recycled fiber, and its McRibs sandwiches come wrapped in recycled newsprint. The company has adopted ambitious recycling programs, particularly in New England and Southern California. And back in the storerooms, it has redesigned boxes for transporting french fries in bulk to reduce the number of boxes needed each day. It has even pledged annually to buy $100 million worth of recycled materials to build its new restaurants.

Three months ago, McDonald's announced a joint task force with the Environmental Defense Fund, an influential environmental group of lawyers, scientists and economists, to look for more ways to improve how it handles trash and food waste. Since then, EDF staffers have studied the composting of food scraps, examined benches made from recycled plastic utensils and generally looked to reduce the amount of packaging at every point.

``They're working in our restaurants,'' Yastrow said, ``asking questions like, `How about trying to serve the drinks without lids?' - that sort of thing. . . . We have a lot

of things we're working on but this is the first announcement that has come out from under the door.''

There are hints that the joint venture has had its moments of tension, however.

McDonald's had defended its polystyrene packaging, noting that, unlike cardboard, no trees had to be cut down to produce it and it provides neat, sanitary protection of food. Many defenders also say that polystyrene can be disposed of in waste incinerators or even, lately, used again through the small but growing polystyrene recycling system.

EDF has long promoted paper and cardboard containers, and opposes incinerators.

And in the task force agreement, both sides had been wary. EDF would not be paid and McDonald's cannot use the environmental group's name for promotion.

For its part, McDonald's has made no pledge to take EDF's advice to heart if it doesn't agree with the task-force conclusions. The two sides haven't even agreed yet to issue a joint report.

``We didn't turn the management of this company over to a task force,'' Yastrow said.

Still, more than a week ago, when McDonald's told EDF that it was planning to expand its polystyrene recycling program to all restaurants, the company listened as EDF argued against it, over the phone and in meetings.

``The last four or five or six days around here were very intense, about whether we should make the change,'' Yastrow said. The telling argument became that paper packaging would fit into the company's operations as well as polystyrene but would reduce package bulk by 90 percent.

For McDonald's that was a lot better than recycling, since fully 60 percent of its packages leave the store and wouldn't be recycled anyway.

EDF apparently made a further point to a company made sensitive to criticism from its customers.

``They added the sense of how this would be perceived in the environmental community,'' Yastrow said, ``because they have a finger on the pulse there.''