McDonald’s Restaurants Eliminate All Single-Use Plastic

In a significant gesture, McDonald’s restaurants in the Western and Southern parts of India have replaced all single-use customer-facing plastic with eco-friendly and biodegradable alternatives. McDonald’s restaurants in West and South India are operated by Westlife Development Ltd. (WDL), through its wholly-owned subsidiary Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt. Ltd. (HRPL). While the Government of India announced 2nd October, 2019 as the deadline for single-use plastic elimination across the country, Westlife Development has been proactively eliminating plastic at its restaurants since 2017.

 

To ensure there is no single-use plastic at the restaurants, Westlife Development has taken the following initiatives:

 

• Replaced plastic cutlery with wooden cutlery (spoons, stirrers, knives and forks)

• Replaced plastic cups with superior quality paper cups

• Introduced bio-degradable lids for hot and cold beverages

• Introduced  straws made from corn starch extract and eventually replaced them with paper straws

 

Significantly, Westlife Development has also cut down plastic usage at its offices. Plastic water bottles have been replaced with steel bottles. The company has also stopped using plastic trays, cups and paper holders in the office. As a result of these initiatives, the company has saved close to 500 tons of plastic in the last one year, thus eliminating landfill and helping the environment.

 

The company said that Westlife Development is committed to supporting the Government of India’s vision of making India greener and drive sustainability. It has been undertaking initiatives to optimize energy consumption across electricity, gas and diesel through its proprietary Energy Management System. It has also started converting the Used Cooking Oil from the restaurants to 100 per cent bio-diesel to fuel the delivery trucks. In addition to this, the paper used for the packaging is FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®) certified.  FSC certification is considered the "gold standard" designation for wood harvested from forests that are responsibly managed, socially beneficial, environmentally conscious, and economically viable. Through these initiatives, the company has cut its carbon footprint by 4300 tonnes.