McDonald's to ditch plastic cutlery and replace with wooden utensils in Australia

McDonald's is to ban plastic cutlery in its Aussie stores
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Bronwen Weatherby2 March 2020

McDonald's restaurants in Australia are going to replace plastic cutlery with wooden utensils.

The fast-food giant announced the plans at a plastics summit in Australia on Monday.

Plastic cutlery will be phased out by the end of 2020 across its 900-plus Australian stores.

It follows a decision in 2018 to axe plastic straws in countries across the world and use an alternative, sustainable option which could prevent 500 million straws from hitting landfill sites every year.

That came after the Evening Standard launched a campaign to bring an end to the wasteful use of billions of environmentally damaging plastic straws in London.

Currently, it is unknown if the corporation plans to roll out the cutlery changes to its 37,855 restaurants worldwide.

McDonald's has already committed to banning plastic straws
PA

The one-day convention in Canberra brought together around 200 government, industry and community officials and aimed to reduce pollution.

The federal government is being called on to make it law that 100 per cent of plastic packaging be reusable, compostable or recyclable by 2025.

McDonald's Australia supply chain and sustainability director Kylie Freeland said: "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,'

"By removing plastic straws and cutlery from McDonald's restaurants, we are continuing to reduce our environmental footprint and will be removing more than 860 tonnes of plastic from our system."

McDonald's conducted a three-month trial on wooden cutlery in nine outlets across New Zealand late last year.

Historically the business has also removed plastic lids from McFlurry cups and replaced its salad bowls and sundae cups with fibre-based alternatives.

Nestle also plans on announcing its method of reducing plastic waste telling the summit it plans to collect biscuit packets and bread bags from more than 100,000 households.

"We know that soft plastics is an area that needs greater focus and collaboration," said Nestle Australia chief executive Sandra Martinez said.

"We need to find ways to drive more recycling here."

Local governments are calling on the government for more action to reduce waste.

 The government is being called on to make 100 per cent of plastic packaging be reusable, compostable or recyclable by 2025
Getty Images

New South Wales president Linda Scott said the government needs to ban single use plastic bags and reinvest the NSW waste levy - almost $800 million Australian dollars - into council recycling facilities.

The Australian Council of Recycling said the summit is an opportunity for real action rather than just rhetoric.

"A summit that puts substance before stylistics is what we need to deal with the plastics problem," the council's CEO Peter Shmigel said.

Mr Shmigel, who will chair one of the summit's sessions, said banning some types of plastic products is understandable, such as single use imported items, many serve very positive purposes.

"Therefore, we need to get smarter with the plastic we do use, especially ensuring its recyclability and that plastic products are made with lower-emissions, domestically sourced recycled resin ASAP," he said.

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