Mayor of Barking and Dagenham joins forces with McDonald’s crew members to clear litter in local area

Maruf Ahmed

The Mayor of Barking and Dagenham, Donna Lumsden, recently joined 19 volunteers from the McDonald’s Barking restaurant in a bid to keep their local areas tidy.

The restaurant, owned and operated by local franchisee Jon Betts who was also in attendance, collected an impressive 12 bags of rubbish between them.

The areas tidied up included James Street, George Street and the local neighbourhood, the London Road area, Abbey Park and back to the Town Centre.

McDonald’s franchisee Jon Betts who owns and operates the Barking restaurant, said: “I couldn’t be prouder of my fantastic team for giving time to their local community, ensuring the areas are a better and brighter place to live. We continue to put people at the very heart of what we do, and this is just one example of our dedication and compassion at McDonald’s”.

McDonald’s crew members have been cleaning up litter dropped in our local communities for over 35 years. Crews across the UK cover a total of 5,000 miles each week on litter patrols (where they collect litter from any origin, not just their own.) This equates to 260,000 miles, or the distance from Earth to the Moon.

McDonald’s is tackling litter in local communities, both by litter picking and reducing the amount of waste its restaurants produce. The brand has been working to make recycling easier over the past 4 years, and since 2015 has installed over 1,100 new recycling units, meaning it’s easier to separate plastics and cups for recycling in 85% of its restaurants.

McDonald’s also collects used oil from its kitchens and turns this into enough biodiesel to fuel more than half of its delivery fleet.