After vast amounts of food and water are fed to the cattle, it's off to the stockyard for sale, and then on to the processing plant. At the plant, cattle are slaughtered and rendered, with the beef cut, packaged, cooled and shipped to warehouses in energy-intensive refrigerator cars and trucks. At the warehouse, the meat is aged, ground into patties, boxed, frozen and stored. At this point, the bun, pattie, condiments and packaging all come together to bring you the final product. We should also point out the resources needed to produce the wrappers and boxes themselves.
Paper is processed from trees, using large amounts of water, chemicals and non-renewable resources.
Plastic is processed from oil or natural gas, also utilizing non-renewable resources. Both materials require energy to produce and ship, resulting in carbon dioxide generation and some air or water pollution. By now, it should be very apparent that the resources used and waste generated at stages we don't see are far greater than those we do notice when confronting the restaurant's trash bin. In fact, ecologists generally agree that each link in the food chain increases resource use by a factor of 10. The technical term for such an examination is Life Cycle Assessment, or LCA for short.