Fast food giant Burger King ditches plastic toys in the UK

Earlier this year, two little girls Caitlin and Ella from Southampton, England, had launched a petition asking fast food restaurants to reconsider handing out plastic toys with their happy meals as “they get thrown away and harm animals and pollute the sea”.

It seems their efforts have borne fruit!

Burger King just announced it will remove plastic toys from all Junior Meals in the United Kingdom in an effort to help the environment. The move is projected to spare 320 tons of plastic annually. Burger King locations will also accept old single-use plastic toys (not only theirs) for collection, offering a free Junior meal in exchange.

These old toys will be sorted, cleaned, shredded, and melted down – hence the name of the campaign, ‘Meltdown’. From a statement on Burger King’s website:

“All toys donated to the Meltdown will be given a new purpose and transformed into play areas for selected stores and special trays encouraging play across our restaurants. This means we are not only eradicating single-use plastic toys from our business, but we are also replacing any new plastics that would have been purchased for the trays & play areas.”

Read more here: https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/burger-king-uk-ditches-plastic-toys-junior-meals.html