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Pixabay image: https://pixabay.com/en/drinking-straw-straw-color-colorful-2170403/

Due to concern from the public and campaigning from pressure groups McDonalds has begun the process of removing plastic straws from its UK restaurants. The fast food chain will now begin to provide biodegradable paper straws as an alternative.

Consumers are now starting to hold companies to account for their role in the production of this waste and due to feedback from its customers McDonalds will also limit the availability of straws in its venues. Counter staff will now ask customers if they would like a straw rather than just providing one with the meal, preventing unnecessary waste.

This change comes amid a growing realisation amongst the populace regarding the extent of plastics pollution globally, as an unacceptable amount tends to end up in the oceans and littered across shorelines.

Apart from being a terrible eyesore this waste is often mistaken as food and ingested by marine life.

According to Greenpeace approximately 12 million tonnes of plastic waste ends up in the oceans annually with single use plastic products being the main culprit. Astonishingly, this is only about 10 percent of the total amount of plastic waste created. The rest is either buried or burnt.

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Pixabay image: https://pixabay.com/en/garbage-environment-beach-pollution-2369821/

Plastic waste has become all too common in our environment and changes like the one McDonalds are implementing are truly needed to tackle the problem.

McDonalds has done the right thing here and this should hopefully encourage similar initiatives from retailers and manufactures across the economy.

I am personally pleased to here about this as I signed an online petition a while back for these straws to be replaced.

Sources:

Mann Tanveer." McDonald’s is getting rid of plastic straws in UK restaurants." www.metro.co.uk. 2018. March 28 <https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/28/mcdonalds-getting-rid-plastic-straws-uk-restaurants-7422232/>.

King Diane. "McDonald’s to replace plastic straws in all UK restaurants." www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com. 2018. June 15 <https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/mcdonald-s-to-replace-plastic-straws-in-all-uk-restaurants-1-4755166>

Casson Louisa. "How does plastic end up in the ocean?" www.greenpeace.org.uk. 2017 August 22 <https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/plastic-end-ocean/>

Le Guern Claire. "When The Mermaids Cry: The Great Plastic Tide." www.plastic-pollution.org/. 2018. March.