McDonald's Australia: Rubbishing Yamba

 

A letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner on 29 April 2010:

 

Rubbishing Yamba

HEATHER Lewis (The Daily Examiner letters, April 15) was mistaken when she attributed to me statements such as 'big numbers of school kids in Treelands Drive making a mess' and 'visitors wouldn't go there'.

Given Ms Lewis also remarks that she passes over some of my letters to the editor, these recent errors are hardly surprising. However, as Ms Lewis has raised the subject of 'making a mess' perhaps I should look at the propensity for McDonald's fast-food outlets to generate waste and become a focal point for branded litter.

Firstly, the McDonald's development application states that it intends to send certain trade waste into Yamba's sewer system with little more than a modern version of an in-ground concrete grease trap between itself and the sewerage treatment process (McDonald's Australia Limited, Statement of Environmental Effects (SEE) March 2010, p.19). A matter which is of more than passing interest given the known limitations of the treatment plant, the fact that any plant upgrade is literally years away and McDonald's own figures suggest that it expects to sell thousands of cooked-on-premises items per average day.

Secondly, McDonald's is rather coy on the subject of its own in-house paper waste once this proposed 24-hour fast-food outlet is operational. It is likely that Australia-wide it creates approximately 20,816 tonnes of waste per annum with an estimated 26 per cent of this being paper/cardboard and only 40 per cent of total waste is possibly being recycled (Popai Sustainability 2008 & McDonald's Australia Ltd 2006). Grafton Regional Landfill currently accommodates approximately 7560 tonnes of commercial/industrial waste in fill per year (Clarence Valley Council, 2010) and another 24-hour McDonald's would potentially add up to somewhere between 17 to 30 tonnes of extra waste each year - or more in a worst case scenario in light of the fact that the company admits contaminated food packaging is unpopular with commercial recyclers.

Given this waste volume, one begins to wonder about any beneficial claims made by McDonald's in the development application.

Thirdly, litter is generated by McDonald's customers in considerable quantity. Clean Up Australia's own 2007/08 National Litter Index highlights the fact that in NSW McDonald's items made up over 14 per cent of all branded litter for that survey period, making it the leading branded litter found on footpaths and in gutters etc ( www.kab.org.au/litter-research/what-we-do/national-litter-index).

This despite McDonald's asserting for years that it has effective litter management in place.

In Britain in 2008/09 a two-day government contracted survey of 10 cities found that McDonald's items comprised approximately 29 per cent of all gutter litter share ( www.prnnewsire.co.uk). Again McDonald's was way ahead of any other branded fast-food litter. It would appear that McDonald's corporate legend should read 'In Litter We Trust'.

So along with further heavy traffic and peak period congestion along Treelands Drive, increased traffic on four residential roads, noise and odour issues in the vicinity of the store, possibly taking business from 'some local take-away food outlets' (SEE,pp. 22-42), and establishing a new focus for late night antisocial behaviour; it seems that Yamba can also expect an increase in the volume of street litter it experiences. All to enhance the interests of a businessman who does not live in the Clarence Valley and a foreign multinational which eventually repatriates most of its profit back to its head office overseas.

Elsewhere in the media there has been some talk of change for the better in relation to the McDonald's application. Now change in any town is inevitable, but such change should be sustainable, positive for the local economy, add to social cohesion and fill the expressed needs of the community generally. If proposed change does not meet these criteria it should be viewed with some suspicion.

In my opinion, McDonald's Australia does not attempt to do more than pay lip service to these four basic requirements - intent only on its own corporate imperatives. Imperatives which see it blithely state that the negative impacts of establishing a McDonald's in Yamba 'are restricted to a small percentage of the population', as though this makes those impacts of no consequence to the many local residents they may impinge upon (ibid,p.42).

As a resident in one of those streets which will feel the impact of council's decision I intend to fully exercise my rights as a local government elector and so strongly do I feel on this subject that, should Clarence Valley shire councillors continue their ever-growing list of disappointingly ill-conceived planning decisions and grant consent for the McDonald's development, this will necessarily inform how I fill out my ballot paper in 2012.

JUDITH M MELVILLE, Yamba