On June 8, McDonald’s announced that it is charging eco designer Wayne Hemingway with creating a brand new, 100% recycled uniform for its 85,000 UK restaurant staff.

Photo: www.guardian.co.uk

According to The Guardian, black and mocha combo created by royal dress designer Bruce Oldfield three years ago will go out. As McDonald’s claims to be the first company in the UK to commit to introducing a ‘closed loop’ recycled uniform. Clothing will be collected in store, reprocessed into raw materials at the Hemingway’s upcycling company Worn Again, and then made into new uniforms.

This is the part of the chain’s longer-term green strategy across all sectors of the business. The biggest fast food chain in the country and one of the UK’s biggest employers hit back criticism attacks with a series of green and social initiatives.

The new uniform designs will be shown up next year before the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games, and the company’s top-performing employees selected to work at the four McDonald’s restaurants on the Olympic Park will be the first to wear it. After the games, the new designs will be rolled out to all 1,200 restaurants.

Jez Langorn, vice president of people at McDonald’s UK, said: «Our people welcomed three million customers a day into our restaurants and they are at the heart of our business. We invest in them to provide nationally recognised qualifications and flexible working – just as important to them is the uniform they wear. «

Hemingway founded Worn Again in 2005, and since then started out to produce footwear, bags and accessories from disused textiles from large companies such as Virgin Atlantic and Royal Mail. Among its recent highlights is a train manager’s bag, made from decommissioned Eurostar staff uniforms, which has just been unveiled for use for the first time by train staff working on the London to Paris and Brussels trains.