New McFlurry Lid is Hedgehog Safe
It's been a really busy week for me, so I''m digging up some news from earlier this month to fill up some space. Most of you know about the McDonalds McFlurry lids and how they were a danger to wild hedgehogs overseas and the long battle fought between the multi-billion dollar McDonalds corporation and a few out spoken hedgehog groups. Well, the hedgehog enthusiasts finally won and wild hedgehogs will be much safer for it! Congrats to everyone involved.
Here is the article :
McDonald's new lid safe for hedgehogs
Sep 15 2006
By SiâN Powell
NUNEATON wildlife campaigners have welcomed a decision by fast-food giant McDonald's to change its packaging to help save hedgehogs.
Two years ago Evening Telegraph photographer Robin Bidgood discovered a hedgehog stuck in a McFlurry carton by the side of a road in Wolvey. He cut the animal free from its plastic trap and let it go.
According to Shropshire-based charity the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, the scene was a common one across the country.
For the past few years the charity has been working with McDonald's to improve the safety of its packaging and now the company has launched a new smaller-holed carton.
Geoff Grewcock from the Nuneaton-based Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary welcomed the decision as brilliant news.He said: "I wish a lot of manufacturers would do this sort of thing."
He also hoped that people would be more careful about what they threw away - particularly the pieces of plastic used to keep four-packs of cans together.
Fay Vass, chief executive of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, said the decision had been a long time coming.
She said: "We got there in the end. The first report was back in 2000 when a milkman from Oxfordshire found a hedgehog with its head stuck in a McDonald's carton and it went on from there.
"In the very beginning McDonald's were sympathetic. About two or three years ago we met up with them in Birmingham and we told them what we wanted and they told us what they needed from the carton and developed this new lid with just a smaller opening at the top.
"We're really glad they have changed at last."
A spokesman for McDonald's said: "We are delighted to announce that we have now introduced a new lid with a smaller aperture for our McFlurry dessert."
He said the lid had been designed specifically to prevent hedgehogs from getting into the McFlurry container in the event that someone had thrown away one carelessly.
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I haven't seen any pictures of the new lid design, but if you come across any, please email them to me so I can post them. I doubt we'll be seeing the new lids here in the US, McDonalds willl probabally ship their old lids to the states to be used up.