Volunteers clear up

A group of volunteers from the  Melksham McDonald’s restaurant recently came together with the council to litter pick in their local area, as part of McDonald’s ‘Keep Up the Clean Up’ campaign. 

The campaign will see teams of McDonald’s volunteers take to the streets this year to tackle litter in their communities, supported by cllr Pat Aves. McDonald’s further  supported the litter pick initiative by donating litter picking equipment, including 20 litter pickers, 50 bags and 50 tabards.

The group embarked on the challenge to give Beanacre Road and Scotland Road a refresh, with the team of volunteers collecting an impressive 11 bags of litter.

 McDonald’s franchisee Mike Guerin, who owns and operates the restaurant in Melksham said, “McDonald’s has been collecting litter in our communities for over 35 years, and I’m proud of our litter -fighting heritage. It’s more important than ever we continue in the fight against litter and I would like to thank everyone who gave their time to join us for this event”

McDonald’s crew members have been cleaning up litter dropped in our local communities for over 35 years. Crews across the UK cover a total of 3,000 miles each week on litter patrols (where they collect litter from any origin, not just their own.) This equates to 150,000 miles, or the distance of four marathons per restaurant per year.

McDonald’s is tackling litter in local communities, both by litter picking and reducing the amount of waste its restaurants produce and have set itself the target of sending zero waste to landfill by 2020 (with many restaurants already achieving this in 2017.)

The brand has been working to make recycling easier over the past four years and since 2015, have installed over 1,100 new recycling units, meaning it’s easier to separate plastics and cups for recycling in 85% of its restaurants. McDonald’s also collects used oil from its kitchens and turns this into enough biodiesel to fuel more than half of its delivery fleet.