It is a logo that the whole world knows. Since its first appearance in the United States in the 1960s, the yellow M representing the McDonald’s brand has become one of the most famous symbols in the world. A brilliant marketing move that allows the fast-food brand to be recognized all over the planet, including by children who cannot yet read. The downside of this success is that the firm is recognizable among all the others, even when its M lies in a pile of garbage left by a not very educated client. Since the advent of the “drive-thru”, the American brand of fast-food has always been the symbol of “free” waste thrown out of the car window or abandoned at the foot of a public bench. Anything but a good ad.
In an attempt to disappear from nature, the brand has therefore hired agents dedicated to collecting garbage around its restaurants. Since January 1, these cleanliness technicians have received unexpected support. By banning disposable tableware inside restaurants, the French state wanted to reduce the amount of packaging produced. It has probably contributed to significantly improving the environment close to fast food restaurants, and in particular McDonalds. “The agents have seen the volume of waste collected around the restaurants drop by a third”, assures Morgane Piromalli, who manages the McDonalds of Cleunay and Villejean. “We already had small volumes. In Rennes, it was one to two bags of 120 liters per day. Maybe a little more on weekends, but that had nothing to do with what we found ten years ago. Customers have adopted good practices,” explains the daughter of Mario Piromalli, who owns all the McDonalds in Ille-et-Vilaine (except Saint-Malo and Combourg).
This gradual reduction in waste, the firm obviously welcomes it and attributes it to the efforts made, in particular on the use of reusable dishes for meals taken on site. Each restaurant was able to remove one out of three 600-litre dumpsters with the discontinuation of disposable tableware. “The subject has always been very present with us. We are a symbol, we know that. To my knowledge, we are the only ones to employ agents to clean the exterior of our restaurants,” emphasizes Morgane Piromalli.
A renewed agreement with the city
As early as 2012, his brand had signed an agreement with the city of Rennes to try to reduce the waste thrown on public roads. Having expired, the agreement has just been renewed for ten years. A reciprocal commitment that has led the municipality to adapt its bins to the often bulky packaging of fast foods. A problem which was particularly noticed during the recent opening of the restaurant at the station, in Rennes. “As soon as a McDo bag was placed in a basket, it piled up. At the slightest gust of wind, the waste would fly. We found them everywhere, it was painful, ”says Frédéric Lecapalain, officer in charge of the cleanliness of the city.
Since then, the situation has improved significantly thanks to the change of bins and the patrols of the cleaning agent. On two occasions, we surveyed the surroundings of the Rennes station. We found beer cans, soda cans, snack wrappers, but no trace of a Big Mac or French fries box. Around the Villejean restaurant, it will take us a good fifteen minutes to come across a paper cheeseburger and a paper bag hanging at the foot of a Crous student residence. “It’s very rare to find one, even in the park. I worked in Cleunay before and it was worse, ”says a city cleaner.
A local resident tempers the idyllic portrait. “There are still bags or cups at the foot of the benches. The worst is Monday. In Villejean, the McDo is open 24 hours a day. “There are some who come to eat there on their way home from the evening and who leave everything in the lurch”, assures this inhabitant. Behavior that remains “on the margins” but continues to exist, in Rennes as everywhere else in France. “The only thing we can’t control is people’s incivility,” admits Morgane Piromalli.