McDonald's to scrap plastic toys in Happy Meals

McDonald's is set to replace its famous Happy Meal toys with non-plastic versions from next year as it tries to reduce its environmental impact.

The business said that from 2021 Happy Meals will come with a soft toy, a book, or a paper-based toy.

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The fast food giant hopes the effort will save more than 3,000 metric tonnes of plastic at its UK business from 2021, which would be its biggest single reduction to date.

It will start trialling the new toys from May, when parents and children will be offered to swap their plastic toys for a book or paper toy when they buy a meal.

This will let environment-savvy customers choose to opt out of the plastic toys in every outlet.

It will also run a "toy amnesty" to let customers bring in unwanted plastic toys in its 1,350 sites across the UK.

McDonald's will then melt the plastic down and make it into toys for its charity in the UK and Ireland.