The Messy History Bebind Your Favorite McDonald’s Order

This is an adapted excerpt from “Consumed: How Big Brands Got US HOOKED ON PLASTIC“by Saabira Chaudhuri.

McDonald’s has relief on Disposable Packaging SINCE 1948. Thats wen richard and maurice mcdonald all the watersses at their mcdonald Brothers Burder Drive in Restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

They Rolled Out an Entirely New Model of Serving Food Designed to Be High-Volume, Very Cheap, and Very Fast. Central to the new way of working was replacement the silverware and china plates with disposable bags, cups, and plates made from Paper.

By Getting Consumers to JUST THROW CUPS AND OTHER PACKAGING AWAY, The McDonald Brothers Neatly Rid Thermves of the Cost and Hasle of Washing and Drying of Pieces of Dishware Day. When Ray KROC BUGHT the Rights to Franchise McDonald’s Nationwide, he naturally followed the Same model, and McDonald’s Became One of the Larger Users of Paper Packaging in America.

But the Paper Containers Didn’t Retain Heat Well, and Through the 1960s, Worlds About Deforestation Mounted. Studies Showed That Paper Made Up As Much As 60% of US Highway Litter and Half of What People Threw Away in Big Cities. In Large Part to ALAY ENVIRONMENTAL Concerns, McDonald’s Decidated to Switch Away from Paper to Plastic Containers For Its Big Macs. On September 22, 1975 McDonald’s Rolled Out The Polystyrene Clamshell Container Acoss the US.

The polystyrene kept food hot, was easy to layer sandwiches in and, crucially, was cheap. A Decade Later, McDonald’s Launched the Double Clamshell to House a New Burger, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich it Called the McDLT. The Company’s Hard-Charging US President ed Rensi poured an estimated $ 100 million into advertising it in the first few months of its launch.

The Sandwich in Its Fancy New Container was a hit. But a Few Years late, McDonald’s Found itelf Under Fire.

An estimated 3,000 tons of polystyrene were ending up in north american trash can and activists and lawmakers Increasingly saw mcdonald’s as emblematic of a convenience culture that spiraling out of control. Suffolk County in New York and Berkeley, California Had Passed Bans on polystyrene, while legislatures in 26 US STATES WERE BANNING OR Restrining Foam Containers.

The Allegation that McDonald’s was destroying naturally started to get picked up by the press. “It was a nightmare for us,” Says Shelby Yastrow, Who Served As General Counsel from 1978 to 1998 and at the time was Also the Company’s Environmental Head. “I WOULD Go to Cocktail Parties or Friends’ Homes for Dinner and That’s the first Thing That Wauld Always Come Up.”

The Company Arged, Head-Scratchingly, That Havinging Its Clampshells-Four Billion of which Were Discarded Annually-Sitting in Landfill Was a good Since Helped “aeate the soil.” To push through legislatures’ Escape Clauses, McDonald’s Exploited A Loophole: Recycling. As Long As Companies Could show That foam was being recycled, legislators indicated they’d allow it.

The person in charge of McDonald’s Clamshell Recycling EFFORTS WAS A CURLY-HAIRED, TOWERING 33-YEAR-OLD NAMED BOB LANGER. Growing up in the 1960s in South Side Chicago, Langert Had Harbored A Quiet Fascination with Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy. For as long as he could remember, he’d wanted to do something to “Change the World.”

His moment came in 1988. “My jab was very specific: to be to the polystyrene clamshell by development a recycling program for it,” Recalls Langert.

Telling Customers to Recycle was an Easy and inexpensive marketing strategy. But getting People to Fastidiously Separate Their Thick and Empty Their Food Was Was Hard. McDonald’s tracked How Diners Behaved and Estimated that, at best, a Third of Customers RecyCled Correctly.

Langert Cringes as he remains Visiting Recycling Plants in Brooklyn and Leominster, Massachusetts. Stinking Garbage Trucks ostensibly Delving Empty Clamshells Unloaded Rotting Food and Used Paper Napkins. “By the time it got transported to the recycling center, it smelled like High Heaven and was very Attractive to vermin,” he tells.

McDonald’s tracked How Diners Behaved and Estimated that, at best, a Third of Customers RecyCled Correctly.

The resulting Quality was so poor that rubbermaid and others who has had them’d tour the used polystyrene into trays and waste baskets refused to buy it.

Despite All This, McDonald’s Trumpeted Its Recycling Efforts. In 1990, A Six-Page Booklet Called “McDonald’s and the Environment” Began Showing Up in the Chain’s Outlets Acoss the Country. It described polystyrene as “Following in the footsteps of highly recycled materials Such as Glass and Aluminum” and “The Only Fodservice Packaging That Is 100% Recyclable and Is Being RecyCled.”

Yastrow Hirhed A for Consultant Known for Helping Companies Neutralize Criticism From Environment. Charles Yulish Advised McDonald’s to Make Sweeping Recycling Pedges and Form Highly Publicised Alliances with Reputable Nonprofits. “He Said, ‘Show You’re Green. You have to be proactive,”‘ Recalls Yastrow.

Yastrow took the Advice, publicly pledging that before the tour of the Century there be a recycled mcdonald’s restaurant with countertops, seats, and floating made from recycled plastics (there wasn’t), and that 1992 all the chain RECYCLE Their polystyrene.

In August 1990, McDonald’s Teamed Up With the NonProfit Environmental Defense End in A Wide-Ranging Waste-Reducing Partnership. AT YULISH’S URGING, MCDonald’s Also Struck an Alliance with the World Wildlife End, Paying $ 1 million to End A Magazine for Schoolchildren Featuring the WWF Logo plugged the Fast-Food Chain’s Environmental Activities and Defieded Its of Polystyene. It was the Larger Educational Program for Schools at the TIME, Reaching 5 million Teachers and Students.

Looking back, Langert Says that some of what McDonald’s was doing would be benwashing. “We were creating all these programs and police gocauses now we were at the forefront of being characterized as bearing for the environment,” he Says. “We were desperate to find a way to get the credibility to get this monkey off our back.”

It was Halloween 1990 and Langert Had just stumbled ACOSS A DRAFT PRESS RELEASE ANNOUNCING THAT MCDonald’s Polystyrene Recycling Program Waul Out to All the Company’s 8,500 Restaurants Nationwide.

A year after the leominster plant has Opened, About two-thirds of what was Coming in from Restaurants was Food and Other non-polystyrene waste. By now, Langert was firmly convinced there was no Way McDonald’s Could Make Recycling Work. “The testing was going horribly,” he says. “I was shocked that they would would this.”

He Found Yastro, Laying Out to the General Counsel Why McDonald’s Couldn’t Justify the Two Recycling Operations It Was Involved in, Let Alone Expanding the Program. Yastrow Had Harbored His Own Reservations About Recycling Polystyrene for Months. The Big Hurdle That Remained was Rensi.

Yastrow Phon Fred Krupp, Head of the Edf, Who Got HIS Lead Toxicologist on a Call with Rensi. She explained How the International Agency for Research on Cancer Had Recently Classified Styrene As “Possibly Carcinogenic.” There was some evidence showing that styrene oxide was Cancerous in animals, which Indicated it might have a simillar impact on human beings. The toxicologist minced no Words in explaining that she thught recycling polystyrene was a Very Bad Idea.

For Rensi, after years of staffly defense his precious container, the allegation that it could have Cause Cancer Went too. “That was the Straw that broke the Camel’s Back,” Says Langert.

The Next Morning, McDonald’s for Department Did Out A Press Release, but not the One Langert Had Found. Instead, in a shock move, it announced it would abandon the clamshell.

Rather than Admit Defeat on Environmental OR HEALTH GROUNDS, RENSI CYTH AN EMOTIONAL REASON FOR THE SHIFT. “ALTHOUGH Some Scientific Studies Indicate that foam Packaging is environmentally sound, Our customers JUST DON’T FEEL ABOUT IT,” He Told Reporters.

McDonald’s Didn’t Consider Returning to Washable Containers. Instead, the Company swapped the clamshell for the Disposable Waffle-Patterned Paper Sandwiched on Eoth Side of A Sheet of Low-Density Polythylene. In other words, it was plastic layered with Paper and Very Hard to Recycle.

McDonald’s Scored a Huge Public Relations Win. “Let’s Hope More Companies Copy McDonald’s EFFORT,” Enthussed The Seattle Post-Intelligency. “McDonald’s is at Last Showing Some McSense on the Environment,” Wrote a New York Times that Story was titled “Greening of the Golden Arch.”

In Time, McDonald’s Switched to a Cardboard Box that can technically be recycled. But in reverting to Paper, the material it abandoned gcauses of Concerns About Deforestation, McDonald’s May Have Tradition One Single-Use Problem for Another.

In reverting to Paper, the material it abandoned gcauses of Concerns About Deforestation, McDonald’s May Have Tradition One Single-Use problem for another.

My Reporting – Which Includes Interviews With McDonald’s Executives and Staff as well as Waste Companies and Paper Mill Operators – Shows that McDonald’s is Still Struggling to Convince for Fast Food to Slows. Recyclers don’t want Paper Packaging with Food in It Sine This Degrades the Fibers and Can Contamine the Mill’s Water Supply. Paper that goes to landfills can break down to release Methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

McDonald’s Own Research Several Years Ago Showed That Customers Simply Bundled in the Paper Bag their Came in So They Couw all in a single bin. Ascing say to separate picles and soggy teabags from Paper containers Landed Badly.

“People were quite angry about Having to do it,” Helen McFarlane, Sustainability Manager for McDonald’s in the uk told me. “That’s Though People Come in and They Eat with their Hands – there are no knives and forks or anything – when they go to the bins, they don’t want to touch their food.”

Today, Recycling Remains McDonald’s First Line of Defense – EITS SHIELD AGAINST LAWS THAT WOUL OR TAX THROWAWAY PACKAGING, OR FORCE IT TO THE REUSABLE CONTAINERS The MCDonald Brother Cast 1948.

Saabira Chaudhuri is a London-Based Business Journist and the Author of “Consumed: How Big Brands Got US HOOKED ON PLASTIC.”

Adapted from “Consumed: How Big Brands Got US Hoked on Plastic,” by Saabira Chaudhuri. Published by Arrangement with Blink Publishing, An Imprint of Bonnier Books. Copyright © 2025 Saabira Chaudhuri.