Burger King S’pore Also Not Giving Straws & Lids Unless Customers Request for Them

In case you’ve been living in a cave, you’d have known that dining in KFC last year is very different from dining in KFC today.

For a start, you’ll have a healthier choice: the fast-food chain has finally released a healthy permanent item, the KFC Signature Grilled Chicken, which is filled with protein and only at 360 calories. No one would have expected Kentucky Fried Chicken to turn into Kentucky Grilled Chicken.

And secondly, you’d have to drink your Pepsi direct from the mouth of the cup, because there won’t be any straws and lids available for you since 20 June 2018.

Yeah, that created quite a hoo-ha: so big, this even occurred:

Guess not everyone’s happy, but hey: no one says that you can make everyone happy for the greater good. If you just want to be likeable, go sell ice-cream instead.

Now, Burger King has jumped onto the bandwagon, though not in full force.

Burger King Singapore Not Providing Straws and Lids Unless You Request for It For Dine-in Customers

Lest you’re not aware, the decision to remove straws isn’t to save cost, but to reduce the use of single-use plastic.

The first reason is simple: plastic takes a looooong time to break down. Unlike other materials, plastic would take 20 to 10,000 years to break down, which leads to the next point: the world is now filled with plastic.

No, I’m not referring to the noses of Korea stars who went under the knife, but literally plastic items. You see, Starbucks once mentioned that they use 1 billion straws per year: if these straws take 10,000 years to break down, we’ll be seeing so many plastic waste that our kids might just stay beside a pile of plastic.

The third, and a pretty pressing one, is the impact of these plastic waste on wildlife animals. Here, take a look at this video of a sea turtle that sucked a straw in its nose.

The solution to that is to tell wild animals, especially marine life, not to eat plastic straws or plastic bags, but unless an animal whisperer has been found, this problem would lead to more endangered animals.

Globally, businesses and individuals have progressively reduced the use of single-plastic items, since almost 50% of plastic is used just once. Therefore, tackling the use of plastic bags and straws has always been environmental activists’ priority.

According to a media release by Burger King, they’re joining KFC to stay green.

But unlike KFC, whereby straws have completely disappeared from all outlets, Burger King won’t go all in: straws and lids would still be provided for takeaways and delivery.

For dine-ins, straws and lids won’t be available on default: you’ll have to get it from the counter crew, and not from this box that we’re oh-so-familiar with:

This initiative would start from 15 October 2018.

General Manager of Burger King Singapore has this to say: “The removal of straws and lids will help our guests rethink whether they really need them and get everyone to do their part in keeping the environment clean. It may seem like a drop in the ocean, but when more organisations adopt the initiative, we believe that it will send a positive signal to the community and we hope that eventually ripples turn to waves!”

In addition, Burger King has been using paper bags for their takeaways (oh, now that explains why McDonald’s is also using paper bags instead of plastic bags).

Just so you know, at this moment, Burger King has 42 outlets in Singapore.

Starbucks Would Also Remove All Straws from Their Outlets from 2020

Three months ago, Starbucks also promised to remove all plastic straws from their outlets (internationally, including Singapore), and would only provide paper straws for drinks like this:

 

Well, two things would happen in 2025: either we’re all going to drink from our cups, or everyone would have a reusable straw in their bag.

Either that, or aliens have landed in Yishun and removed all plastic waste from earth, allowing us to use straws freely.

I’m inclined to think that the last scenario is most likely to occur.