FAST-FOOD staff swapped burger flipping for litter picking in a town centre spring clean-up.
The group from McDonald’s donned high visibility jackets and armed themselves with litter pickers for the blitz on trash.
The team targeted a number of ‘grot spots’ identified by Kirklees Council yesterday – including St Peter’s Gardens off Byram Street.
The event was held in support of Keep Britain Tidy’s The Big Tidy Up campaign which encourages volunteers to help keep their local area clean and tidy by collecting as much litter as possible.
Previously, a survey by Keep Britain Tidy found that fast food litter was second to cigarette ends in littering the country’s streets and 29% of that was from McDonald’s restaurants – followed by boxes and cups from unbranded kebab and fast food shops.
Greggs the bakers generated almost a fifth of the fast food litter, followed by Kentucky Fried Chicken, Subway and a number of coffee brands.
Following the findings Phil Barton, Keep Britain Tidy’s chief executive, called on takeaways to reduce unnecessary packaging, make eating inside their restaurants a more attractive option, encourage customers to use a bin, offer money off to people who returned packaging and to provide more bins.
Now McDonald’s is actively supporting the Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
Pritpal Singh, who owns the franchise for the popular restaurants in the town centre and the Gallagher Retail Park in Waterloo, helped organise the event.
He said: “As a local businessman in Huddersfield I see first-hand the negative effect litter has on the environment.
“It’s unsightly and no-one wants it strewn across their local community, but litter is everyone’s responsibility. Both individuals and businesses like mine have a role to play in tackling and raising awareness of the issue.
“My restaurants do a lot already on a daily basis with initiatives like litter patrols, but these larger scale litter picks are a chance for our staff and the community to tackle the problem together head on and raise awareness that littering is unacceptable.
“It’s great to think we’ve helped to make such a noticeable difference to a popular public space. I really hope people will enjoy the revamped area and continue to keep it litter-free.”
Pritpal’s event was just one of a number of McDonald’s spring clean events taking place throughout May to support The Big Tidy Up; Keep Britain Tidy’s biggest anti-litter campaign.
Rooted in the community, the initiative aims to get local people, organisations, businesses and groups to take action against the litter problems in their area.
For more about the Keep Britain Tidy campaign visit www.keepbritaintidy.org
