Burger King acts to cut waste

● Burger King will begin testing reusable containers next year to reduce waste from sandwich and soda packaging, the burger brand said on Thursday.

The chain, a unit of Restaurant Brands International, hopes customers will ask for their food to come in the reusable packages, pay a deposit, and get the money back after they scan used soda cups and burger boxes through an app before returning them.

Burger King worked with waste management firm TerraCycle’s Loop unit on a so-called closed-loop system that creates no waste because special packages are repeatedly cleaned and reused. Materials used to make the packaging have not been finalised.

The pilot programme will launch initially in the second half of 2021 in some Burger King restaurants in New York City and Portland in the US, and Tokyo.

Restaurant chains have been experimenting with reusable and recyclable materials in response to environmental concerns.

Starbucks and McDonald’s co-founded the NextGen Consortium in 2018 to address single-use food packaging, including a competition to design new cups, lids and straws that are more compostable, recyclable and reusable. Its aim is to eventually scale up to mass use of such cups.

Burger King said that its reusable containers would be cleaned with Loop’s “state of the art” cleaning systems that are aligned with its own “rigorous safety procedures around cleanliness and hygiene, all of which have become even more pressing during the current pandemic”.—