I'm landfillin' it: Inside McDonald's' troubled history with recycling.

"McDonald's has relied on disposable packaging since 1948. That's when Richard and Maurice McDonald fired all the waitresses at their McDonald Brothers Burger Bar Drive-In restaurant in San Bernardino, California. They rolled out an entirely new model of serving food designed to be high-volume, very cheap, and very fast. Central to that new way of working was replacing the silverware and china plates with disposable bags, cups, and plates made from paper."

"But the paper containers didn't retain heat well, and through the 1960s, worries about deforestation mounted. Studies showed that paper made up as much as 60% of US highway litter and half of what people threw away in big cities. In large part to allay environmental concerns, McDonald's decided to switch away from paper to plastic containers for its Big Macs. On September 22, 1975 McDonald's rolled out the polystyrene clamshell container across the US."

"The polystyrene kept food hot, was easy to layer sandwiches in and, crucially, was cheap. A decade later, McDonald's launched the double clamshell to house a new burger, lettuce and tomato sandwich it called the McDLT. The company's hard-charging US president Ed Rensi poured an estimated $100 million into advertising it in the first few months of its launch. The sandwich in its fancy new container was a hit."

McDonald's adopted disposable paper packaging in 1948 to eliminate the labor and cost of washing dishware, enabling high-volume, low-cost, and fast service. Ray Kroc expanded the franchised model nationwide, making McDonald's a major paper-packaging user. Paper containers failed to retain heat and raised deforestation and litter concerns by the 1960s. To address those issues, McDonald's replaced paper with polystyrene clamshells in 1975, which kept food hot, were stackable, and very cheap. The company later introduced a double clamshell for the McDLT and spent heavily on advertising. The shift produced large volumes of polystyrene waste, estimated at 3,000 tons in North America.

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