Happy Meal toys to no longer use plastic?

[The Predaking]

So, forgive me for this, as this is news from 18 months ago, but I just found this out yesterday.

I took my oldest two kids to meet up with my Brother, SIL, and two nephews to see the new Mario movie. After the movie was over, I suggested we take the kids to the nearby McDonalds, as we can get them a happy meal and let them play on the indoor playground. After we get there, instead of new Mario happy meal toys, they have these little Mask Singer plushies. That is when my brother casually mentions that McDonalds will not be using plastics in its Happy meal toys.


Now for the past year or so, I realized that every time we would go to our local McDonalds (which is horrible for wait times and general upkeep), we would get a crappy little Disney plush(usually Stitch), but I just thought that was their go to toy for when they weren't running a specific happy meal promotion.


So I am a bit torn on this. On the one hand, the progressive side of me is glad that they are doing something to reduce the amount of plastic being produced. I know that they make a lot of happy meal toys, so that this is a significant step. I just feel a bit bummed as the toys that they are making now won't compare to what they used to make just a few years ago. Oh well. What are your thoughts on this old news?

 

[Pocket]

The world definitely needs to cut way the hell back on the production and use of plastics, but the best place to start would be stuff that's actually meant to be single-use, which for a fast food chain means straws and cup lids. Have they switched to biodegradable materials for those? I'm also curious what materials those crappy plushes are made of, because my cursory research tells me most plush toys are made of polyester... which is plastic.

 

[Axaday]

We don't go to McDonalds much but kid meals everywhere have mostly been giving us cardboard games.

 

[Dvandom]

The plushies could be made from recycled plastic bags, which can be made into fairly fuzzy cloth-like material.

---Dave

 

[Donocropolis]

I think they're trying to reduce the amount of plastic toys, but not eliminate them completely. Here's their Super Mario toys:

Which are definitely the old style Happy Meal toys. I think it just depends on the promotion. Some properties can be done well without plastic, but some can't.

 

[BeastWarsFan95]

Happy meal toys not made of plastic? Are they going to be made of food?


But seriously I remember HMTs being a mixed bag, some were really good and some... well, there was reason you could find bags of them for dirt cheap at thrift stores.

 

[Kalidor]

They should go back to making Happy Meal boxes be part of the toy. When I was real little, I can barely remember them, but they had the Happy Meals come in little spaceships or boats. Yeah, they were plastic but they could still do something similar with cardboard.

 

[BeastWarsFan95]

They should go back to making Happy Meal boxes be part of the toy. When I was real little, I can barely remember them, but they had the Happy Meals come in little spaceships or boats. Yeah, they were plastic but they could still do something similar with cardboard.

I remember toys that had shooters would have a box that could function as a target board. I also think the The Dog/Cat plushies used the boxes as houses?

 

[Donocropolis]

They should go back to making Happy Meal boxes be part of the toy. When I was real little, I can barely remember them, but they had the Happy Meals come in little spaceships or boats. Yeah, they were plastic but they could still do something similar with cardboard.

I remember toys that had shooters would have a box that could function as a target board. I also think the The Dog/Cat plushies used the boxes as houses?

A lot of them use to be pretty creative in how the box interacted with the toy. The boxes often had punch-out windows or doors or what have you to be a a fun little throw-away playset.

The 80's/early 90's was a great time to be a kid.

 

[The Predaking]

I think they're trying to reduce the amount of plastic toys, but not eliminate them completely. Here's their Super Mario toys:

Which are definitely the old style Happy Meal toys. I think it just depends on the promotion. Some properties can be done well without plastic, but some can't.

Here is what they are doing now:

Which is weird since the Mario movie just came out.

 

[Kalidor]

I glimpsed that and thought it was an awful tie in to a kids meal. I've never met a single adult that cares about that jive, much less a kid.

 

[Ultra Magnus13]

I glimpsed that and thought it was an awful tie in to a kids meal. I've never met a single adult that cares about that jive, much less a kid.

As a kid I wouldn't have needed to know anything about it to think that cyborg fox, dino Indy, cowboy badger or WW2 pilot horse were cool, of and car pharoh.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Which is weird since the Mario movie just came out.

Yeah, up here at least, they did the Mario movie ones a while back. Like, January or February or something.