Are McDonald’s toys coming to an end after 40 years?
A mother has taken to social media to campaign against the McDonald’s children’s toy handed out with every Happy Meal after finding an excessive amount in a rubbish bin in Sydney.
The woman, named Tara, says she saw a bin overflowing with the Macca’s happy meal boxes in Darling Harbour, Sydney and after rummaging through the contents found 30 plastic toys destined for landfill.
Tara took to social media to share on a mothers’ group what she had found and to discuss her outrage over the plastic toys that “end up in landfill or our oceans”.
She wrote: “Found all these in the bin at Darling Harbour. This is so distressing to me.
“There were even more in other bins! There was probably a total of around thirty spotted in under ten minutes.”
The mother added: “All of this plastic will end up in landfill or our oceans. Why are people buying happy meals for a toy their kids play with for less than a few minutes?
“This is a disgrace. Please, could someone use one of these photos and put a caption on it saying 'ban the happy meal toy' so it can be shared to spread awareness about this issue?”
The angry post was met with hundreds of comments mostly agreeing with Tara that the happy meal toy, that has been handed out to kids for over 40 years, should be completely canned.
The toy first began being handed out in 1979.
One disgruntled user pointed out that McDonald's could change its pricing to stop adults buying the happy meal.
“Part of the problem is that a cheeseburger happy meal ($5.50) is cheaper than a small cheeseburger meal ($6.40) - leading teens and adults with no interest in the toys to buy the meal and dump the toy,” they said.
“Maybe making the prices equal or having the toy come at a cost would reduce how often people get the meal with the toy.”
Another said it wasn't McDonald's' fault but that parents were to blame.
“Why can parents not say no,” they wrote.
Other commenters felt the toy shouldn’t be banned, as it is no different from any other plastic toy purchased for children.
“Banning that toy would be like banning any toy or junk aimed at kids,” they wrote.
An international study calculated that 192 nations produced an amount of 275 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2010.
Images: Facebook.