75% of Australians Believe McDonald’s, Gloria Jeans Should Offer Reusable Cup Discounts to Customers

October 04, 2018

New Poll Urges McDonald’s - Australia’s Largest Coffee Chain - to Cut Coffee Cup Pollution

15,000 Sign Petition Urging McDonald’s to Make Change

AUSTRALIA -- New polling commissioned by international consumer group SumOfUs, is adding pressure on fast food giant McDonald’s to cut its plastic pollution in Australia. The poll, conducted as McDonald’s celebrates 25 years since the McCafé brand was created in Melbourne, finds 75% of Australians believe coffee chains like McCafé and Gloria Jeans should offer reusable cup discounts to customers.

A petition urging McDonalds to make the change has already garnered over 15,000 signatures.

McCafe, Australia’s largest coffee chain by market share, produces over 80 million single use coffee cups each year
Due to their unrecyclable plastic lining, most coffee cups end up in landfill or as pollution
The UN has labelled ocean plastic pollution a planetary emergency and the World Economic Forum has estimated that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans

View the petition here: https://actions.sumofus.org/a/mcdonalds-is-polluting-australia-s-oceans

View the polling here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.sumofus.org/images/Essential_Report_250918_waste.pdf

“Australia’s coffee obsession is choking our oceans. Of the billions of un-recycled coffee cups dumped in Australia every year more bear the McCafé logo than any other.” said Nick Haines, Senior Campaigner at SumOfUs. “Reusable cup discounts are an easy way to start reducing this mountain of waste. Consumers support it. Many small cafes are already doing it. It’s time a company with as much market power as McDonald’s did too.””

This past year, McDonald’s announced that it would be phasing out plastic straws in some regions after nearly 500,000 SumOfUs members signed a petition and sent 21,000 emails to McDonald’s executives demanding action.

“McDonald’s has already shown its willing to heed consumer demands for less plastic packaging,” Haines added, “but the proposals the company have so far announced will take years to implement. Encouraging customers with a discount for bringing their own cup is an easy step which will help to start chipping away at McCafé’s 80 million cup mountain of waste right now.

View the petition here: https://actions.sumofus.org/a/mcdonalds-is-polluting-our-oceans

Over 370,000 SumOfUs members also joined a global coalition asking Starbucks to adopt better packaging this past year. After immense amounts of public pressure, Starbucks recently announced it will commit $10 million in a partnership to bring a fully recyclable and compostable cup to market in three years. McDonald’s announced in July that it would join this venture.

Poll conducted by Essential Research for SumOfUs. The survey was conducted from 20th to 23rd September 2018 with a nationally representative sample of 1,030 respondents.