Fast Food Leaves the Most Litter
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 01.14.09
image from flickr.com
It turns out that garbage from McDonald's is the most prevalent litter found on the streets of England. Next comes rubbish from Greggs, a bakery, then KFC and Subway. With a soupcon of abandoned coffee cups, kebab and fish and chip wrappers on the side. Keep Britain Tidy carried out a survey of the garbage in a number of cities. It revealed that fast foods make up a quarter of all the litter found on the streets. It's pretty disgusting and the sidewalks show it.
Their Dirty Pig campaign is calling on fast-food customers and the chains to be more responsible. For TreeHuggers the encouraging part is the range of suggestions to the chains on how they could clean up their act. They are telling them to do things that we have been posting about for years and now these ideas are hitting the main streets.
image from flickr.com
Keep Britain Tidy campaigners say that "We want fast food chains to play a more active role in delivering an anti-litter message at the point of sale.”
- They say that all fast food chains should reduce unnecessary packaging.
- The companies should have lower prices for patrons who eat inside the restaurants.
- They should offer discount vouchers for people who return the packaging.
- They should have more garbage cans along local streets, not just in front of the restaurants.
Naming and Shaming: the most littered fast food brands in England
1. McDonald's – 29 %
2. Unbranded fish and chips/kebab – 21 %
3. Greggs -18 %
4. KFC – 8 %
5. Subway – 5 % and other branded coffee 5 % (joint place)
In addition, academic research has shown that seeing litter displaying a company's brand can cause negative branding, which affects the customers' perception of the brand.
KFC claims that it is taking their responsibility to the public "very seriously" and will introduce a programme to reduce packaging on many products.
Subway wasn't quite so agreeable and said that it was up to the customers to find a bin.
For some reason the findings on the hierarchy of litter differ from city to city. What this reveals about each place must be left to a sociologist somewhere else. But for the curious, Greggs' packaging was most popular in Manchester, whilst McDonald's topped the list in Newcastle. Fish and chip wrappings were the worst in Liverpool. Sheffield was big on KFC while in London coffee cups accounted for the most. Keep Britain Tidy Via : The Telegraph
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What was McDonalds reaction?
I don't normally advocate tax as a solution but given the true cost of fast food on local cleaning services and health services McD's and their ilk should pay towards the mess they and their customers create.
So true.. Fast food is not good for health and also the environment .They have started this concept of eating on your way somewhere without having to sit and eat peacefully. And dont encourage their customers to care for environment. But I guess things will change now for good !
It's not just a problem in British towns and cities, but in the rural areas too thanks to drive-through McDonalds and motorway service-stations on the edges of towns. People go to these places then throw their rubbish into the verges of country lanes after a few miles of driving.
Honestly, is there any "restaurant" less environmentally conscious than a drive through McDonalds on the outskirts of a town/city?
As a cyclist I see lots of roadside trash. My informal ranking would be:
1. Dunkin Donuts
2. McDonald's
With beer cans and bottles (Anheuser-Busch #1), cigarette packs, and lottery tickets following. Awful.
I've tried to think of a way to assign the cost of pickup back to the primary generators as a percentage of total. Or to simply return the trash to them. Somehow DD and McD's must share some responsibility, and not lay it all on their customers.
I like the tax idea.
I was taught in my youth not to litter, but some folks won't do the right thing unless forced to. Maybe have a deposit on everything?
That way maybe the poor and homeless will keep it all cleaned up. I've spent plenty of time picking up anything that I could return for a little money and actually did pretty well at it at times.
Well not surprised to see that people who eat junk food also pollute...It all goes together right?
This will sound unavoidably moralistic but many people who are that thoughtless and impulsive about what they put in their bodies aren't going to be much more considerate about their environment. It's incredible, but too-obviously true, that anybody still litters. I'm not sure that it should be their job, but it would be good if McDonald's (symbolically, at least, representing the fast-food industry) reduced the garbage that their customers put in their mouths and on the streets.
This will sound unavoidably moralistic but many people who are that thoughtless and impulsive about what they put in their bodies aren't going to be much more considerate about their environment. It's incredible, but too-obviously true, that anybody still litters. I'm not sure that it should be their job, but it would be good if McDonald's (symbolically, at least, representing the fast-food industry) reduced the garbage that their customers put in their mouths and on the streets.
we need a concerted effort on certain days (Earth day, perhaps?) to pick up the readily identifiable trash and dump them off at the nearest McDonalds or wherever it originated. Corporations who genuinely care can avoid embarrassment by cooperating and providing funds and manpower.
In other news:
Fish Swim
Birds Fly
Fire Burns
and
Waters Wet.
Not saying this isn't relevant or anything but it's sorta blindingly obvious. Liter in public places would naturally have to be mostly fast food I mean really, what is the only thing you buy use the contents of and get rid of the packaging outside of your house? Well it's not that big screen TV cuz lord knows it's hard to unwrap that AND walk at the same time. Just saying that studying this is sorta redundant even wasteful (of time).
how hard is it to throw away any item??? I know sometimes it's hard to find a trashcan, but you keep the item either until you get home to throw it away or find a trashcan to throw it away.
We are teaching our child to either find a trashcan or wait to get home to dispose of litter. If I see her throw trash on the ground I have her pick it either put it in her pocket for later or find a trashcan.
Zig
My dad and I were talking about litter one time, while we walked to the store. You get a good chance to see a lot of litter when walking. Anyway, he theorized that if you gathered up all the cigarette butts that people leave laying around, it would be a greater mass than all the rest of the trash (kinda like how all the ants in the world have a greater combined mass than the human species...).
Yes, litter is gross. And people who litter are grosser.
And smokers are the grossest of all.
Hey call me old fashioned %100 of the blame lays at the feet of those who toss the trash. Would be the fault of the furniture store if a sofa they sold 20 years ago ends up in a grader ditch? I would have hoped at this point in the game treehuggers understood knee jerk solutions are rarely a solution. Here is your order ma'am/sir, please don't litter. Probably as ineffective as all the Radio/TV PSA.
I'm glad to hear the UK has a 'Keep Britain Tidy' campaign and I can't help but feel it was modelled on our very successful 'Keep Australia Beautiful' campaign. I've visited the UK and cannot contain my disgust and the disrespect a vast proportion of the public pay to the environment be it concrete or otherwise. It seems that the common thinking is that it is someone else's job to pick it up, that it "creates employment", what a lot of waffle!
People need to pick up their rubbish and call out people who recklessly abandon their leftovers as they occur rather than holding onto it for the next 8 metres until they pass a bin!