Back in the 80s, McDonald’s came up with a Halloween promotion for their Happy Meals. Instead of serving the food in a paper bag, they served the kids meals in festive plastic buckets. The pails were decorated to look like either a pumpkin, a witch, or a ghost.
Once you were done with your meal, you could save the bucket and use it for trick or treating. Unless you had already started carrying a pillowcase instead in the hopes that the size of the receptacle would be directly proportional to the amount of candy you would receive.
As soon as Halloween was over, these buckets would be shoved into the backs of closets where they would be forgotten until the following year. However, by serving food in a plastic pail, McDonald’s ensured that landfills everywhere would be full of cheap plastic buckets positively riddled with BPA that will never break down–just like that clog in your arteries from all the McDonald’s Happy Meals you ate as a kid.
Happy Throwback Thursday!
Emily Regan 