Since the beginning, the most iconic part of fast food has been the packaging. From the yellow arches of the McDonald’s Happy Meal to the instantly recognizable KFC Bucket, the signature packaging is what immediately comes to mind as soon as you hear the name of a restaurant.
Besides the presentation, one of the most reassuring aspects of the packaging is that it’s easy to get rid of. Why break your back doing the dishes and cleaning the table when you can grab your meal, and when done, toss it in the trash? It’s easy and efficient.
This is the nature of fast food. It’s tasty, it’s cheap, and above all, it’s disposable. However, one thing that is often overlooked is the environmental impact of not only the trash produced by fast food, but fast food in general. What happens after the meal is gone?
Environmental science teacher Jessica Young, who is knowledgeable in the field, has observed these impacts for a long time.
“First, the packaging is designed to be single-use and thrown away and disposable. Everything often comes in multiple wrappers and bags, since it’s on the go,” Young said.
The trend was started by McDonald’s way back in 1948. Eschewing traditional plates, utensils, and cups, McDonald’s transitioned from eat in to take out. Now, everything was packaged in plastic or paper, designed to be easy to throw away. The idea caught on quickly, especially with the boom of car culture in the 1950s.
However, the issue of the trash produced by fast food has never been suitably addressed. A 2011 study by Clean Water Action, an environmental advocacy group, found that nearly half of the litter in the Bay Area was fast food packaging, and the Natural Resources Defense Council reported that no fast food brands met best practices for using recycled materials or promoting recycling of used packaging.
The packaging isn’t the only thing ending up in the trash, though. In fact, one of the most overlooked forms of waste is what’s left on our plates.
“There’s a lot of food waste where things won’t be used completely, so they’re major contributors to the food waste every year,” Young said.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 30-40% of food is wasted, equivalent to 133 billion pounds and $161 billion. Of this, 40% comes from restaurants.
The reason for this is due to their operating model, with readily available food making it hard to predict customer demands and leading to overproduction. And since food waste in landfills is becoming an increasingly large problem, waste management in the fast food industry is a top priority.
The waste is coupled with the unsustainable practices fast food companies use to procure the sheer amounts of food to meet the demand. Most major chains rely on large-scale suppliers to provide enormous quantities of meat, produce, and other ingredients, often sourced through harmful methods.
While this system supports the global scale and speed fast food demands, it also comes at a high environmental cost. Typically, there is the involvement of heavy pesticide use, long-distance transportation, and significant greenhouse gas emissions, especially from meat production.
Even as these loom as huge problems, it’s not all doom and gloom for the coexistence of fast food and a healthy planet.
“I know Wendy’s has changed the packaging they use to more sustainable material,” said Young. “Some places put in recycling and composting programs to reduce waste from both the food and the packaging.”
Indeed, some of the titans of fast food have made agreements to try to become more sustainable. In 2015, McDonald’s broke new ground by pledging to prevent 150 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the atmosphere by 2030. Wendy’s has been possibly the most active, setting a goal to sustainably source all of their packaging by 2026.
In an interview, Liliana Esposito, the Chief of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at Wendy’s, stated that a sustainable future is one of Wendy’s top priorities.
“It’s a journey and we continue to, to be on that journey and probably will never consider ourselves complete,” Esposito said. “But a few years ago, we went through a process of, first just identifying…those issues that are most important to the company.”
The first was to responsibly source the food, and the second was to responsibly source packaging.
“In terms of what is most driving, I think the most, [is] kind of pride and encouragement. It’s just seeing us make progress against all of those goals,” Esposito said.
In the end, maybe the giants of fast food can change their ways to keep our planet healthy for the future. And who knows, maybe in this future, we’ll find our next Happy Meal or KFC Bucket packaged sustainably. We’ll see new icons of fast food ready to do their part in not just feeding us, but helping the environment along the way.