Is this some kind of St. Patrick’s Day joke gone horribly wrong?
That’s the first thing that many customers reportedly thought when they went into their local McDonald’s restaurant this month and discovered that the drink caps and other items were suddenly green.
It turns out this isn’t a St. Patrick’s Day promotion; the green drink caps are part of an effort by McDonald’s to literally go green by reducing landfill waste. And many customers are angry.
So why are the caps this strange color? The green color of the caps indicates that they are made of compostable plastic. They can be discarded in a special compost bin and turned into fertilizer for farms.
Going Green. Literally.
McDonald’s has been rolling out these new green options at several test stores across the United States. McDonald’s restaurants in other countries apparently already use these kinds of environmentally friendly items.
In addition to the green compostable caps, other items at the test stores include compostable paper straws, as well as paper bags for items like fries and chicken nuggets instead of the iconic red McDonald’s cardboard boxes.
I stopped into a McDonald’s in California that is part of the test in order to try the items out. Although the green caps didn’t bother me once I understood their purpose, I was absolutely not a fan of the other green items.
McDonald’s Coke products taste better than anywhere else for a variety of reasons, but their oversized plastic straws are a big part of it.
Those Straws Though…
The compostable straw that I tried—although not made of paper—didn’t have the same flavor-enhancing impact.
The flimsy paper bags for my french fries were the worst. Trying to eat my meal in the car, the bags got soaked with grease and fell apart. Contrast that with the sturdy, cupholder-sized containers we’ve all loved for generations, and the winner is obvious.
And don’t even get me started on the “clamshell” style containers for burgers and sandwiches!
It turns out I wasn’t the only one who is unhappy with McDonald’s new green choices. Other customers that I spoke to also felt that the quality of the items was terrible and that they distracted from the taste of the food.
It’s also a little bit bewildering why McDonald’s feels it needs to make this change. Most of the packaging at McDonald’s is already made of paper or cardboard, much of which can likely be composted already in commercial compost facilities.
And even with the “green” switch, the McDonald’s I visited still dolled out plenty of little plastic sauce containers with foil lids. Those are hardly environmentally friendly!
Overall, this feels like the kind of “greenwashing” that no one asked for. People don’t dine at McDonald’s to make a green choice–they go for the flavor and the cheap prices.
McDonald’s should focus on providing better recycling and composting options for its existing, iconic, extremely functional packaging. It’s been perfected over generations. There’s no reason to change it.
I’m fine with sorting my McDonald’s packages into a Compost and Recycle bin when I leave. But don’t force literal green lids, terrible paper straws, and ugly beige clamshells on my beloved McDonald’s experience.
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