McDonald's+Corporation+-+Question+and+Answer+Portion

The McDonald's corporation were asked some important questions about their business, and some questions and answers are here...


 * __Q: What do the McDonalds do about the left over food, i.e. burgers, etc? Do they dispose of it? How much food is left in a day?__**

A: At McDonald's, we have strict holding times for all cooked products and our raw ingredients. Each restaurant has a site-specific list of the amount of ingredients and cooked products they will sell at any given time of the day. The staff and managers use these as a guide to ensure they sell the freshest possible products to our customers, with the minimum amount of waste. In our drive to ensure each customer receives a quality product, inevitably there will be a small amount of waste. Throughout the day waste is monitored and counted by the restaurant managers. When restaurants finish trading at the end of the night all waste is added up and entered into the computer systems to enable the restaurant management to account for any discrepancies and keep a close eye on their stock control. (July 2009)


 * __Q: Each day, how many paper cups and paper bags are used by McDonald's in the US? How much waste does this produce (CO@, trees cut, landfills, etc.) and what are the environmental impacts of these paper cups and bags?__**

A: Make Up Your Own Mind has been set up specifically to answer questions about McDonald's within the UK so it is hard for us to answer specific questions about other markets, although you can visit the home page of McDonald's US via www.mcdonalds.com. With regards to McDonald’s UK McDonald's takes environmental responsibilities very seriously and is committed to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill. This is achieved through recycling all its cardboard packaging and its used cooking oil for the production of 100% bio-diesel which is used to run its delivery fleet, re-using bun trays and shake containers, design improvements for packaging such as reducing plastic in salad containers and removing all foamed polystyrene. Unfortunately recycling customer waste is very difficult in the UK, as paper waste that has food residue is not accepted at recycling facilities, and nor are many types of plastic. So rather than send waste to landfill we work hard to 'recover' as much as possible. For example, waste from 11 McDonald's restaurants in Sheffield is currently being diverted from landfill and sent to an energy-from-waste facility. This project is proving so successful for food-contaminated waste that the company is now looking to expand this project to other parts of the country, where the facilities exist. Additionally, McDonald's has conducted a compost trial for 12 of its restaurants in Dorset and currently are awaiting results of the test. (April 2009)


 * __Q: What type of waste does McDonald's generate?__**

A: McDonald's takes environmental responsibilities very seriously and is committed to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill. This is achieved through recycling all its cardboard packaging and its used cooking for the production of 100% bio-diesel which is used to run its delivery fleet, reusing bun trays and shake containers, design improvements for packaging such as reducing plastic in salad containers and removing all foamed polystyrene. Unfortunately recycling customer waste is very difficult in the UK, as paper waste that has food residue is not accepted at recycling facilities, and nor are many types of plastic. So rather than send waste to landfill we work hard to 'recover' as much as possible. For example, waste from 11 McDonald's restaurants in Sheffield is currently being diverted from landfill and sent to an energy-from-waste facility. This project is proving so successful for food-contaminated waste that the company is now looking to expand this project to other parts of the country, where the facilities exist. Additionally, McDonald's has conducted a compost trial for 12 of its restaurants in Dorset and currently are awaiting results of the test. (March 09)

__**Q: How much waste does McDonald's produce everyday?**__

A: The waste generated by a McDonald’s restaurant will vary according to factors such as location, frequency of visitors, product mix, and percentage of eat-in and take away orders, and opening hours. For example, a drive thru can produce from 91 kg to 153 Kg a day while a high street restaurant can produce around 104 kg per day. It has been calculated by McDonald’s waste contractor that on average a McDonald’s restaurant produces 125 kg waste per day. (December 2007)


 * __Q: I have chosen McDonald's as a case study for waste and minimization plan. The report will include the business, raw materials, products, wastes. Effort of management and staff in developing the plan. What are the benefits of minimizing waste?__**

A: Any waste is bad waste. It does not make business or environmental sense. McDonald's takes environmental responsibilities very seriously and is committed to reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill, through recycling, recovery, design improvements and re-use. Three-quarters of our company restaurants recycle all of their cardboard, and we aim to increase this to 100 percent by April 2007. Cardboard is about 25 percent of a restaurant's total waste. Delivery packaging is reused wherever possible. The majority of our restaurants waste less than one percent of their food stock and all used cooking oil is recycled. Efforts to recycle customer waste have been unsuccessful so far as paper waste that has food on it is rejected, as are many types of plastic. McDonald’s therefore tries to ‘recover’ as much waste as possible rather than send it to landfill. Waste can be sent for use as biomass, to offset the use of fossil fuels, so the company is looking at a waste-to-energy pilot scheme.

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