McDonald's will finally do away with Styrofoam by the end of 2018 as part of the company’s overall plan to use only recycled packaging.
The fast food chain released a statement laying out their plans to be completely green by 2025. Along with the mission to use only recycled, renewable or certified sources for packing up their food, McDonald's vows to have a separate recycle bin in all of their restaurants worldwide, according to INC. Only 10 percent of the restaurants have a separate bin for recycling trash.
"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," said McDonald’s executive Francesca DeBiase in a statement the company released regarding their plans.
McDonald’s recycling plan is a huge step in helping the environment. It is estimated the company uses over 1.5 million tons of packaging per year worldwide. As of now, only 50 percent of the packaging comes from recycled, renewable, or certified materials. That means the fast food chain is adding a lot of waste to the environment each year.
RELATED: MCDONALDS FACTS FROM BEHIND THE GOLDEN ARCHES
The plan for rolling out their green imitative will take a while but if all goes well, the company will have reached their goal by 2025. Less than ten years from now, they will use 100 percent recycled or renewable packaging products.
However, the company has not commented on how this will affect plastic products like straws and cup lids. Even if the rest of the packages are green, finding a replacement for those products needs to happen too. It may only be two products but they are two highly used products that are very harmful to the ocean and marine animals.
Now that McDonald's is getting rid of all their styrofoam and released their going green plan, hopefully, other restaurants will follow suit. The fast-food industry is a large contributor to waste and hazardous environmental products. If they would all take the step to go 100 percent green with their packaging, it will go a long way towards protecting the environment for future generations.