McDonald’s Ukraine has announced a series of policies to reduce the use of single-use plastic and other materials.
Since the beginning of the March, McDonald’s restaurants in Ukraine have replaced plastic cutlery with wooden ones. The fast-food giant chose birch as an alternative material due to its ‘strong, natural, renewable’ properties and because it ‘does not have a pronounced wood taste, which is very important for preserving the original taste of food’, McDonald’s Ukraine said in a statement. The initiative is expected to reduce its plastic use by 40 tonnes annually.
The Ukrainian chain has also stopped using plastic lids to cover cold drinks consumed inside McDonald’s establishments, which should reduce plastic usage by another 8.5 tonnes a year. Hot drinks as well as take-away drinks will continue to be served with plastic lids.
In addition to plastic, McDonald’s is reducing its use of rubber gloves and paper liners in Ukrainian restaurants. Company employees will no longer use rubber gloves in the production area, a measure introduced during the covid-19 pandemic.
The company also has plans to get rid of tray liners to save up to 100 tonnes of paper per year. It is currently implementing a pilot project in McDonald's restaurants in Vinnytsia, a city in west-central Ukraine, which it plans to scale up to the whole country.
At the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, McDonald’s closed down all its restaurants in the country. It reopened a Kiev location in September 2022 and has since slowly reopened other establishments across the country. Establishments have resumed operations amid expanded security rules that allow restaurant staff to shut the stores to get to the shelter in the event of an air alert.
McDonald’s in Europe have been replacing plastic with fibres for a few years, pushed in part by fast-approaching targets in laws like the PPWR. The plastic industry has been critical of the lack of ‘material neutrality’ in the PPWR, arguing that in many cases replacing plastic with alternatives results in worse greenhouse gas emissions.