McDonald’s To Remove Plastic Toys From Happy Meals To Help Environment

McDonald's has taken further steps to reduce its impact on the environment by removing the plastic toys from its Happy Meals .

The business has said that by 2021, the kids meals will instead come with a soft toy, a book or a paper-based toy.

The fast food chain says the changes will save more then 3,000 metric tonnes of plastic from its UK business, making this move its single biggest reduction so far.

The toys will be trialled from May, with parents and kids offered the opportunity to swap their plastic toy for a book or one of the new paper toys.

PA

This will mean that customers who are already concerned by the environmental damage the toys could cause, are able to select another option.

The company will also run a 'toy amnesty', with customers invited to bring in any unwanted plastic toys to any of its 1,350 sites across the UK - the toys will then be melted down to make new items for McDonald's charities in the UK and Ireland.

Gareth Helm, the company's chief marketing officer in the UK, said: "We care passionately about the environment and are committed to reducing plastic across our business including within our Happy Meal.

"Families have high expectations of us and we're working as hard as we can to give them the confidence that their Happy Meal is as sustainable as possible.

"Getting that right is a big responsibility, but we believe the changes we're making today have the potential to make a big difference."

In June last year, McDonald's announced plans to remove plastic lids from its McFlurry packaging in all UK restaurants from September. They were replaced with cardboard lids.

The company also stopped using single-use plastic for its salad options, as part of an overhaul to the packaging of its UK menu.

At the time, McDonald's said the changes were to reduce plastic waste by a total of 485 metric tonnes every year - 383 of which will come from McFlurry packaging alone. This represents a huge step in the right direction to tackling plastic waste and pollution, which has been carried on by their changes to Happy Meals.

The firm recently confirmed that its popular Monopoly promotion would be back again this year, with the start date confirmed for 24 March.

Time to make that decision, LADs - Maccies Monopoly or summer bod?

Topics: Food, UK News, trash isles, McDonald's

Amelia Ward

Amelia is a journalist at LADbible. After studying journalism at Liverpool John Moores and Salford Uni (don't ask), she went into PR and then the world of music. She spent a few years working on festivals and events before joining LADbible. In her spare time, Amelia likes music and spending good, quality time with her cat, Paul. You can contact Amelia at [email protected].

@ameliasward