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385,000 Sign Petition Asking Fast Food Restaurants To Stop Giving Away Plastic Toys

385,000 Sign Petition Asking Fast Food Restaurants To Stop Giving Away Plastic Toys

The toys have a knack of ending up in either the sea or a landfill site

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

More than 385,000 people have signed up to an online petition asking for McDonald's and Burger King to stop giving away plastic toys with their children's meals.

The petition was started by two young girls and calls upon the fast food giants to try to do their bit with regards to reducing the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans, as well as in landfill sites.

Ella and Caitlin, aged nine and seven respectively, started the petition after learning about the environment in school.

However, rather than simply learn about it, they decided to start doing something about it. They started the petition through Change.org and it has been incredibly well received.

Plastic waste is one of the biggest environmental challenges facing us.
PA

Currently the number of signatories stands at more than 386,000 people. That's not bad going by any standards.

The petition reads: "We are Ella and Caitlin aged 9 and 7, and we've been learning all about the environment at school and the problem of plastic. It made us very sad to see how plastic harms wildlife and pollutes the ocean, and we want to change this.

"That's why we want Burger King and McDonald's to think of the environment and stop giving plastic toys with their kids meals.

"We like to go to eat at Burger King and McDonald's, but children only play with the plastic toys they give us for a few minutes before they get thrown away and harm animals and pollute the sea.

"We want anything they give to us to be sustainable so we can protect the planet for us and for future generations."

Too much plastic ends up in our oceans.
PA

It continues: "After we learned about the environment and pollution in school we wanted to do everything we could to help. We put a poster up in the window of our house about saving the planet and we try and recycle as much as we can.

"But we want to do more, which is why we started this petition. It's not enough to make recyclable plastic toys - big, rich companies shouldn't be making toys out of plastic at all.

"Please help us get Burger King and McDonald's to listen to us by signing our petition to help the environment."

To be fair, McDonald's has taken steps to reduce the impact it has on the environment in recent times by reducing the amount of plastic they use.

Plastic straws are no longer used in McDonald's in the UK and Ireland.
PA

Last year they announced that they were to ban plastic straws from all of their restaurants in the UK and Ireland.

Then, last month, they announced that they will stop using plastic lids in McFlurry packaging, too.

That's a decent start, but we still need to do more to fight ocean pollution and to preserve the world for future generations.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: World News, uk news

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