Those of you who know me or have read my diary in the past will know I have two obsessions: cycling and recycling. What you may not know is that I have a third obsession which borders on a major addiction – an addiction so strong that no amount of rehab or electric shock therapy in my nether regions could ever cure me. I admit here in public that I am addicted to and obsessed by McDonalds.
Most weekends I go on a long bike ride and then make my way to the local Mickey D?s drive through for a Big Mac, one apple pie, a coke and a small coffee. As I sit in my car at the drive-through speaker-phone I find myself involved in the usual pantomime. ?How many creams and sugars with the coffee?? To this question I always give the same reply: ?Two creams and one sugar, please.?
Today I visited the popular food emporium and the drama played itself out as per usual. As I approached the second window and forked over $5.70 the cashier repeated my order back to me. So far so good. At the third window the attendant asked me again: ?How many creams and sugars?? And once again I replied: ?Two creams and one sugar, please.?
At which point she delved into her bin of condiments and gave me EIGHT creams and TEN sugars!
As per usual I insisted the attendant took back the surplus coffee enhancing products and I swear, though I can?t be completely sure, she dropped the lot in the bin. Did I forget to mention she also gave me a really resentful look and rolled her eyes? This happens to me every week.
It might seem petty but let?s do the Math. McDonalds signs read BILLIONS SERVED (Let?s assume it?s a conservative one billion for the purposes of our experiment). Let?s also assume that 20% of those orders included one cup of coffee which equates to 200 million orders of coffee. If today?s ridiculous waste of cream and sugar were typical then that means McDonalds have needlessly trashed 1,800,000,000 sugars and 1,200,000,000 cartons of half and half. This equates to roughly 23,000 tons of sugar and 3,125,000 gallons of cream. (The sugar sachets seem to weigh 1/2 an ounce and it takes 48 cream containers to fill a pint jug).
I?m making a guess here but I?m betting that 98% of the people reading this either work at McDonalds, will work at McDonalds or will eat at McDonalds some-time in their lifetime. And while I have to admit that driving to the Drive-through and buying food in throw-away containers is not exactly practicing what I preach just think of the difference we could make if we either (as workers at Micky D?s) gave people what they asked for or (as customers) returned the surplus we didn?t need.
I?m dreaming again aren?t I?