McDonald’s Lying Yet AGAIN to Consumers?

McDonald’s seems to be well-known for sneaky and deplorable practices. Videos, articles and pictures are floating around the internet with these discrepancies. A while ago, I visited the mall in my hometown with a friend. Newly installed, they have recycle bins with different compartments to sort your trash, to help keep garbage out of landfills.

I thought, what a great idea – as there is no one space for just garbage, so you are forced to separate it – to help people recycle while outside their homes. My friend, however, knew better:

“I wonder if they just throw it all out like the McDonald’s at WalMart does?”

“What do you mean?”

“Yeah, McDonald’s have the same recycling bins but in the back room, it all goes in the garbage.”

So, McDonalds is trying to prove to people they care about the environment because of said bins, but in reality they are doing no part of it. They throw it all out regardless.

Whether this is McDonald’s themselves or WalMart, due to a lack of recycling facilities, really shouldn’t matter. Putting out an image of trying to be more environmentally-friendly (and making us take the extra 2 minutes to sort), McDonald’s should be following through with it!

It’s practices like these that really make me lose hope for society; how can a consumer believe anything they are told? Our entire society is made up of buyers and sellers, if those sellers are continually lying, and buyers are not aware (or choose to be ignorant) how can our society improve and grow for the better?

Guidelines set, by the government, for the food industry are designed to protect consumer safety and consumption. But why would the government have a minimum? Shouldn’t there be one standard across the board? It makes it easy for companies like this to slip under the radar, because they are technically following the law, but it’s clear what is and what isn’t healthy.

Obviously McDonald’s wasn’t always like this; back in 1954, McDonald’s burgers were getting cooked up by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald at a hamburger stand in California. It was that year that Ray Kroc pitched the idea to open several restaurants of the same name in which he could sell his Multimixers (a milkshake mixer machine, in which he was the sole owner of) to each restaurant.

“[Kroc] saw the value of a restaurant system that could be famous for offering consistently prepared, quality food that tasted the same in every location, every time.”

Kroc opened the first restaurant with golden arches in Illinois, the next year. By 1958, McDonald’s had sold its 100 millionth burger. In 1965, with a total of 700 restaurants, the company went public with the first offering on the stock exchange.

Within 10 years, McDonald’s went from a humble, quality-driven, private establishment to a franchise chain, more focused on making money and selling another 100 million burgers than “consistence, quality and success”. I do believe the unfortunate success for this company is due to, not only Ray Kroc, business associates and their greed but also to consumers inability to look past ads and media and give in to the fast food craze.

Which is exactly what’s happening currently and what is going to keep occurring if we don’t make the changes necessary to better our economy.  Our efforts need to be focused on higher improvements aside from what to eat at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King today.