Have you ever read an ad paper on the plate when you ordered some products in McDonald? Actually I hadn't done, but recently I've come to read one whenever going there. It seems to be just a normal kind of advertisements apparently, but I noticed it told us some important information from time to time. Not always, though.
I went to McDonald near my apartment to study over dinner the other day. I hadn't carefully read an ad inserted between the plate and the products, but I paid attention to the ad at that time with no reason. It said like this: "We are trying some environmental-friendly actions." After reading it, I got interested in its actions and felt like knowing more specific information about them, so I decided to look them up in the Internet.
According to an official McDonald's Japan website, it does three kinds of actions for our environment: cutting its energy consumption, reducing its consumption of bags, and recycling its products.
The first action is cutting its energy consmption. McDonald makes it a rule to adjust the amount of electricity it uses: e.g, the use of air-conditioners. It makes them clean in order to make them work effectively, and it doesn't turn them on except hot days and cold days. In addition, it always makes sure that its energy consumption doesn't exceed its norm. As a result of these actions, it succeeded in reducing about 3 tons of CO2 emissions a year in each branch store.
The second action is reducing its consumption of bags. McDonald has begun 'easy wrapping' since 2008, and as a result, roughly 50 percent of bags were cut back. Moreover, it doesn't make its products in plastic bags unless the products need more than 2 paper bags. Also, it doesn't consume any bags in case that a customer orders 1 drink only. These actions are all aimed to CO2 reduction.
The third action is recycling its products. It's called 'made for you' system. It forces its employees to cook just after receiving orders from coustomers. This action leads it to avoid wasting precious food. What's more, the food wastes are to be recycled as stuffs like manures, feed for livestock, and biogas. After all, 47.6 percent of its food was recycled in 2011, which exceeded 7.6 percent more than its original goal.
I was absolutely amazed at how hard McDonald contributed to conserving our environment. Before, I thought it was just a fast food company and knew nothing about such actions behind its services. Customers tend to receive its services without noticing its hard work because it's always invisible. I think it's important to pay attention to such a "shadow" work which is often inclined to be overlooked. We'll be able to see the company from a different perspective by doing so.
I learned two crucial things from the information above. Firstly, advertisements are sometimes worth paying attention to. Of course, not all of them are necessary and reliable, but chances are that we can get some profitable information from advertisements just like my experience. Secondly, just a small thing has an infinite possibility to grow bigger and bigger. McDonald's actions themselves had been initially quite small, but after all, they became bigger and contributed to conserving our environment. That reminded me of a proverb: "Many a little makes a mickle."
Environmental issues that we must tackle in this age are certainly quite complicated and seem to be hard to solve, but it is true that we must take some actions in order to make the earth alive. In my opinion, just tiny actions can be the best solutions as I said before, regardless of how serious the problem is. Taking this into consideration, there are not a few things we can do in order to save our environment. Once everybody in the world takes small actions, then they'll definitely grow bigger to solve environmental problems. Once again, "Many a little makes a mickle." I believe that there are still some chances left to save the earth.
