Leighton Buzzard McDonald's staff take part in litter pick for 'Keep Up the Clean Up'

Kindhearted staff from Leighton Buzzard' s McDonald’s recently teamed up with their families to volunteer and clean up the local area.

An impressive 20 bags of litter were collected as part of the company's 'Keep Up the Clean Up' campaign, which will see teams of volunteers from all around the country take to the streets this year to tackle litter in their local communities.

Team member Laura Christopherson, who organised the litter pick, is currently part of a McDonald’s franchisee training programme and has been working at the Billington Road site as part of her induction.

Laura said: “I’m really proud of the team for giving their time and efforts to do their bit for our fellow Leighton Buzzard residents. McDonald’s has been collecting litter in our communities for nearly 40 years and it’s more important than ever we continue in the fight against litter. We are really happy with the difference we have made.”

McDonald’s says that it is tackling litter in local communities, both by litter picking and reducing the amount of waste its restaurants produce.

The brand was the first restaurant company to introduce litter patrols in the UK in 1982, and its franchisees and employees have "cleaned up irresponsibly discarded litter dropped in towns and cities across the country for nearly 40 years".

A McDonald's spokeswoman added: "Crews across the UK cover a total of 5,000 miles each week on litter patrols, collecting all litter, not just McDonald’s packaging. This equates to 260,000 miles, or the distance from Earth to the Moon.

"McDonald’s has recycling units in over 1,100 of its restaurants to help customers dispose of their packaging responsibly, recycles coffee cups from all coffee retailers and developed a new industry standard for paper straws. This year, McDonald’s eliminated hard plastic toys from the Happy Meal, with each meal now containing a soft toy, book or paper-based toy.

"McDonald’s also turns used oil from its kitchens into enough biodiesel to fuel more than half of its delivery fleet and has reduced its annual plastic use by over 1,000 metric tonnes thanks to new packaging innovations."