Local McDonald’s volunteers help to clean up city park in Tower Hamlets

Thursday 14th August 2014, Bethnal Green, London – Local McDonald’s crew from the Commercial Road and The Highway restaurant organised its annual big clean up at Weavers Fields park as part of their ‘Love Where You Live’ campaign.
Joining forces with the Cleaner Greener Volunteering team of Tower Hamlets, they embarked on the litter picking challenge to raise awareness and inspire the community to take pride in their local area.
Donning high visibility jackets and armed with litter pickers the team of 30 McDonald’s crewmembers and volunteers collected over 10 bags of litter, aiming to encourage the community to take responsibility for keeping their neighbourhood litter-free. Veolia Environment, Recycle London, FiFiLi, Idea Store, Tower Hamlets Safer Neighbourhood Team, Tower Hamlets Speaker of Council, Abdul Mukit MBE, Councillor Abjol Miah, Councillor Mahbub Alam and the cast from the YouTube hit sitcom Corner Shop also joined the team of clean up volunteers for the day.
Tariq Hussain, local McDonald’s franchisee in Tower Hamlets said: “Following on from our Love Where You Live clean up last year at the King Edward Memorial Park it was inspiring to see members of the community join forces to take action against litter yet again. Unfortunately there are still a significant proportion of people who think it’s acceptable to drop litter. It is through these events we aim to inspire people to look after the places where they live, work and play.
“I’d like to thank all the volunteers who got involved for their hard work and for setting a good example of what can be achieved if we simply work together. It’s vital that we all do our bit to tackle the issue – everyone from local businesses to the residents of Tower Hamlets should make a commitment to help protect our local environment. ”
Now in its fourth year, this event was just one of hundreds of McDonald’s clean-up events taking place across the country in 2014 as part of Keep Britain Tidy’s anti-littering campaign, ‘Love Where You Live’. The campaign encourages the public to take action and help reduce the amount of litter in their local area and across England by 2020.
Phil Barton, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy said: “It’s so important for local businesses and the community to work together to not only clear-up unsightly litter in the area, but also to raise awareness and promote the anti-littering message. The events that McDonald’s has been undertaking are a great example of what can be achieved when people work together to take pride in their local area and it’s great to see that this event is one of hundreds that will be taking place this year across the UK.”
Aside from larger litter events such as these, staff at the Commercial Road and The Highway restaurant patrols the streets at least three times a day to collect all litter that has been discarded, regardless of its origin.