McDonald’s Happy Meal to go green? Food joint to phase out plastic toys by 2025

In a step towards reducing plastic consumption and promoting the use of biodegradable/ green products, the fast-food giant McDonald’s has announced that the company is all set to replace the plastic toys in their famous meal combo for kids--' Happy meal’, with biodegradable and plant-based ones. 

The “Happy Meal” combo, that used to come along with a plastic toy, has been the American food franchise’s trademark for more than four decades, but under the go green initiative of the company, it has vowed to reduce its plastic consumption across the globe. The company in a press release informed that it has planned to replace plastic toys with toys made out of renewable, recycled, or certified plant-derived or bio-based raw material, that doesn’t harm the planet. The company has aimed to eradicate the use of green toys from all its outlets across the globe by 2025. 

McDonald’s aims at replacing plastic toys from Happy Meal

The company said, “Starting now, and phased in across the globe by the end of 2025, our ambition is that every toy sold in a Happy Meal will be sustainable, made from more renewable, recycled, or certified materials.”

The food giant further informed that it has already kickstarted the implementation of the new policy and has been able to efficiently implement it in the UK, Ireland and the whole of France.

The switch to plant-based toys will make them renewable, recyclable and will significantly help to reduce the consumption and use of fossil fuel-based plastic. The company has put forth that an estimated 90% of the company’s total plastic consumption in Happy Meal toys will be minimised with this initiative and the plastic reduced will be equal to the plastic generated by the whole population of Washington in a year.

“Making our toys out of renewable, recycled, or certified materials will result in about a 90% reduction of fossil fuel-based plastic in Happy Meal toys, from a baseline of 2018. For perspective, that’s more or less the size of the entire population of Washington, DC, eliminating plastics from their lives for a year,” the press release stated.

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