McDonald's in compost trial

The fast food chain McDonald's is turning its waste into compost as part of an eco-friendly trial in Dorset.

Twelve McDonald's restaurants will take waste to a composting plant where it will be converted into compost for agricultural use in local farms, instead of sending it to landfill.

If the two-week pilot is successful, the fast food chain hopes to expand it nationwide as part of its aim to stop sending waste to landfill.

The trial follows a scheme still running in Sheffield to turn waste into energy and is part of the company's commitment to reduce its environmental impact.

The restaurants in Dorset are expected to save around 40 tonnes of waste during the fortnight.

If the scheme was rolled out across all 1,200 McDonald's UK restaurants, the potential amount of waste saved from landfill could be 90,000 tonnes per year - enough to fill more than 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Marie-Louise ter Beek, the firm's UK environment manager, said: "As a responsible and progressive business, we are always looking for ways to move closer to our goal of sending zero waste to landfill and the composting trial in Dorset is an important example of this.

"If the pilot is successful, we would like to continue to compost waste in Dorset and extend the trial to other areas of the UK.

"We have recently tried a number of other successful initiatives to help reduce our environmental impact, including energy from waste scheme in Sheffield restaurants that reduced our carbon impact from waste disposal in the area by 54 per cent.

"We have also been working hard to raise awareness amongst our staff of the importance of preserving and protecting the environment. In fact, training on energy management helped the business use 4 per cent less energy in 2007."

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