Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has partnered with BioPak to replace all their plastic straws and cutlery across all their 650 Australian fast food outlets with FSC™ certified alternatives.
KFC has made the switch to FSC™ certified paper BioStraws and FSC™ certified birchwood spoons and forks sourced from sustainably-managed forests. They are 100% paper/wood and can be home composted together with food scraps.
For a quick service restaurant like KFC, straws and cutlery are both convenient and necessary. But with plastic straws comes significant environmental harm: they can’t be recycled, take hundreds of years to break down, and are often ingested by wildlife. KFC’s use of BioPak compostable paper straws help mitigate these environmental effects.
Small Change, Big Difference
By choosing BioPak straws and cutlery, KFC has significantly reduced their carbon footprint and how much plastic they are using. Whilst replacing plastic straws with paper or plastic with wood might seem like a small change, it does make a big difference for the environment.
By choosing BioStraws and cutlery, KFC is avoiding 275 tonnes of plastic and offsetting 102 tonnes of carbon, every year.
Why Paper is Better Than Plastic
Single-use plastic straws are among the top 10 debris items, and have a useful life of about 20 minutes. After that, they end up in the natural environment, and are destined for waterways where they are ingested by wildlife.
BioPak paper straws are made from FSC™ certified paper sourced from managed plantations, and are 100 percent carbon neutral. Plus, they are certified home compostable to Australian standards AS5810.
While compostable packaging is not a license to litter, in the unfortunate circumstance BioPak paper straws end up in waterways, they will biodegrade much quicker than plastic, and will ‘untwirl’, which reduces the risk of harming marine life significantly. When composted correctly, they will take around 12 weeks to break down into nutrient-rich compost that can be used in gardens and farms around Australia.
KFC’s move to switch to paper straws means helping support the planet and the community, without compromising on the convenience of single-use foodservice straws.
Learn more about how compostable food packaging can make a difference for the planet: BioPak compostable foodservice packaging.
