McDonald’s announces a new goal to improve their packaging and reduce waste in all their restaurants around the world. By moving onto sustainable packaging, the company is listening to customers, who have mentioned that packaging waste is a top environmental issue for them.
The fast-food chain’s goal is to have 100% of guest packaging come from a renewable, recycled or certified source with a preference for the Forest Stewardship Council certification by the year 2025. Along with this, the company’s other goal for 2025 is to recycle guest packaging in all of McDonald’s restaurants. As stated on the company website, McDonald’s hopes to influence powerful change and be a part of the solution.
This new plan expands McDonald’s previous goal to have 100% fiber-based packaging come from recycled or certified sources where no deforestation occurs by 2020.
“As the world’s largest restaurant company, we have a responsibility to use our scale for good to make changes that will have a meaningful impact across the globe,” said Francesca DeBiase, McDonald’s Chief Supply Chain and Sustainability Officer. “Our customers have told us that packaging waste is the top environmental issue they would like us to address. Our ambition is to make changes our customers want and to use less packaging, sourced responsibly and designed to be taken care of after use, working at and beyond our restaurants to increase recycling and help create cleaner communities.”
McDonald’s Plans to Improve Recycling Practices
In order to make this happen, the fast-food company will work with leading industry experts, local governments and environmental associations, to improve packaging and recycling practices. Together, the plan is to drive smarter packaging designs, implement new recycling programs, establish new measurement programs and educate restaurant crew and customers.
McDonald’s global preference for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified materials demonstrates their far-reaching commitment to source packaging that benefits people and forests around the world,” said Kim Carstensen, director general of the Forest Stewardship Council, according to the company website. “The partnership between McDonald’s and FSC – the world’s most trusted certification of forests and forest products – also creates a uniquely powerful opportunity for McDonald’s to engage customers about simple ways to protect forests,” he added.
Currently, 50% of McDonald’s customer packaging comes from renewable, recycled or certified sources and 64 percent of fiber-based packaging comes from certified or recycled sources. Globally, an estimated 10% of the fast food chain restaurants are recycling customer packaging.