McDonald’s Australia Will Soon Use Wooden Utensils To Get Rid of Plastic For Good

• Plastic straws and cutlery will soon be phased out in all McDonald’s stores across Australia.
• The fast food giant will instead use wooden utensils in their daily operations.
• The major change has been announced by the company during a national plastics summit in Canberra.

McDonald’s Australia is taking a big step towards protecting the environment. The popular fast food chain recently made an official statement, laying out their plans to get rid of plastic cutlery by using their wooden counterparts instead.

The company shared about the initiative in a national plastics summit held in Canberra. The event has hosted by Sussan Ley, the country’s Minister for the Environment.

McDonald’s Australia is bidding farewell to plastic straws and cutlery before the end of 2020.

Kaylie Freeland, supply chain and sustainability director of the company, explained:

“We’re committed to being an industry leader in sustainable practices, ultimately using our scale for good to positively impact challenges facing the communities we operate in.”

Through this eco-friendly effort, the fast food giant will significantly decrease its environmental footprint as they eliminate over 860 tonnes of plastic in their operations.

Prior to the announcement, nine selected McDonald’s branches in New Zealand used wooden cutlery for a period of three months in 2019.

Fortunately, the experiment proved to be a success!

No plastics soon in all Australian McDonald’s stores – and hopefully throughout the world.

Australian Council of Recycling CEO Peter Shmigel praised the brand for the bold move.

“Hopefully McDonald’s will roll out wooden utensils across the globe in a continued effort to reduce plastic waste,” he added.

That would definitely be great and it would be even better if other companies, big or small, would likewise take inspiration from McDonald’s. We all need to contribute towards having a cleaner, safer environment for us (and our future generations) to enjoy.