Litter Pickers and McDonald’s join forces in the New Forest

New Forest McDonald’s restaurant teams have taken part in a combined litter picking event with Litter Pickers of the New Forest in a bid to keep their local area tidy.

The litter pick, organised by local McDonald’s local franchisee Tony Bennett and his team, is the first in a new partnership with the Litter Pickers of The New Forest.

A total of 10 members of staff from the restaurants, which are owned and operated by Tony Bennett, collected an impressive 20 bags of rubbish. The staff started at the McDonald’s Picket Post restaurant in Ringwood and cleaned up the road towards Burley Village. 

Litter Pickers of The New Forest was set up in 2020 and hosts monthly litter pick events across Dorset and Hampshire, with members also litter picking on a daily basis.

Inspired by the community group’s work, Tony and his team unveiled a new banner at the Picket Post restaurant to encourage customers to dispose of their rubbish responsibly. The Picket Post restaurant team also donated new, branded high-vis jackets to the group to help them to stay safe whilst they continue their important work that everyone in the community benefits from.

Liz Downs, secretary and press officer of the Litter Pickers of the New Forest said: “We’ve been cleaning up our local area since 2020 and are delighted to begin our new partnership with McDonald’s. We welcome the opportunity to team up and spread the word that litter is bad for both the environment and for the wildlife which calls the New Forest home. We look forward to continuing our work with McDonald’s to ensure this lovely part of the world stays clean for the people who live, work and visit here.”

McDonald’s crew members have been cleaning up litter dropped in 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 all types of litter, not just McDonald’s branded packaging). 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 four years too, 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.