Fast food
McDonald’s packaging creates enormous mountains of rubbish – this is how the company wants to change that
McDonald’s wants to try reusable packaging.
© Beata Zawrzel // Picture Alliance
McDonald’s produces huge mountains of rubbish with its fast food. In order to reduce the size in the future, the group is now testing new packaging. This step should not be entirely voluntary.
The drink in disposable cups, the burgers, fries and nuggets also in separate packaging: the fast food companies have tried to use as little plastic as possible in the packaging. But the flood of rubbish remains.
Lieferando, but also supermarket chains such as Rewe, have long been tinkering with reusable systems to meet consumers’ desire for less rubbish. And fast food giant McDonald’s now also wants to get involved. Reusable packaging has been tested in ten selected restaurants since the beginning of November, reports the “Food newspaper“.
McDonald’s is testing reusable packaging
Reusable packaging is being tested in ten branches, including two from the greater Munich area and Berlin. The test period should only amount to two months until the end of the year. According to the company, the tried and tested concept will then be introduced across Germany in a year. So McDonald’s is really pushing the pace.
Because from 2023 fast food providers, but also snack bars, bakeries and cafes will be legally obliged to offer their customers reusable packaging that is more environmentally friendly in addition to one-way packaging. McDonald’s wants to anticipate this development.
For its reusable cups, McDonald’s wants to take one euro, according to the “LZ”. The cups can be returned to one of the ten test branches.
This reusable test is only one component in a global strategy to reduce waste. McDonald’s wants to convert 100 percent of its packaging worldwide to renewable, certified or recycled materials by 2025. McDonald’s no longer wants to accept that “packaging is flying around on streets, footpaths and even in forests and polluting the environment”. Apparently there have been “lately more and more complaints about such ‘littering’ especially with McDonald’s packaging in our guest service as well as in the media,” writes the company on its own Environmental blog.
What Burger King is planning
Competitor Burger King also wants to become more sustainable and relies on reusable packaging. However, these are only available in a few branches worldwide. Together with the packaging company Loop, customers can then get soft drinks, coffee and burgers in reusable plastic boxes and cups and pay a little more for them. If the packaging is returned, this amount will be credited back to the customer. The collaboration started in 2020 in New York, Portland and Tokyo. Other cities should follow.
Burger King is working to reduce waste, the company said. “We place a great deal of emphasis on making our packaging material more sustainable: We reduce packaging, avoid plastic, pay attention to recyclability and implement operational processes. We have been doing this for a long time in many areas – including our classic, the Whopper – on 100 percent paper, “says Daniel Polte, Public Relations Manager at Burger King, about” Food Service “.
For some time now, environmental groups and activists have been calling for the big fast food companies to be made more accountable. “Large coffee and fast-food chains such as Starbucks, Burger King or McDonald’s are among the main culprits for the massively growing mountains of disposable rubbish during the Corona crisis. Our survey and our own samples show that the large catering companies are largely sticking to the current throw-away model , instead of relying on environmentally friendly reusable “, criticizes the Deputy Federal Managing Director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe, Barbara Metz, the business models of the major players. “The time for single-use waste or half-hearted pilot projects is long gone: We now need nationwide reusable systems for cups and food boxes.”
