Burger King, one of the American fast-food giants for hamburgers, announced that it will restrain from handing out plastic toys along with children’s meals. It also said that it was launching an amnesty for customers to return any freebies in a bid to tackle the growing problem of plastic waste.

Fast-food outlets to reduce plastic consumption

The fast-food giant acknowledged that the initiative will decrease the use of plastic across its outlets in Britain. The number is estimated to be 320 tonnes of single-use plastic that will not be served in the market. Earlier this week, Burger King’s competitor McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) announced that the consumers will be allowed to exchange their happy meal toys with fruit bags. The initiative will be in process from next month in some of its outlets across Britain and Ireland. McDonald’s also plans to introduce books as another option from next year. 

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Burger King focused to remove single-use plastics

The Southampton sisters Ella and Caitlin McEwan's Change.org galvanized Burger King and McDonald's in a petition asking them to stop selling plastic toys with their children’s meals due to an alarming increase in plastic waste causing harm to the environment. Alasdair Murdoch, the chief executive of Burger King, UK told international media that the giving away of plastic toys was a strategy to reduce packaging. He said, “What we are really focused on is removing single-use plastics, and that’s why we’ve done that with the toys.” 

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New playhouses

Burger King, a unit of Canada’s Restaurant Brands International (QSR.TO), informed the international media that it is also positioning new bins around UK stores that would accept the plastic toys given to the customers by other competitors, in cereal boxes or magazines. The objective of collecting plastic toys is to give them a new purpose. These toys can be utilized to construct new playhouses and kid’s zone in selected stores to encourage play across restaurants. The data from research firm Sense360 revealed that 3.2 million happy meals are sold by McDonald's per day and are also the world’s largest food chain to reduce the use of plastic by rolling out its plastic straws, removing the plastic lid from McFlurry and eliminating from the salads. 

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