Packaging & Recycling

Packaging helps us safely and conveniently serve our guests the food they love; but we know that packaging and plastic waste are threatening the health of our planet and we have a responsibility to help address this challenge.

Our packaging strategy focuses on four key pillars aimed at the protection of natural resources and the reduction of waste through increased circularity. Working closely with our suppliers, we are innovating to reduce our use of packaging and promote reusable alternatives, designing for circularity and working to help our guests recycle and divert waste from landfill.

Our goals and strategy are the result of a feasibility study, where our supply chain and sustainability teams studied key parameters related to guest-facing packaging. These included understanding the range of commercially available raw materials, supply availability, costs, and how these factors compare with the needs of our brands.

Our Goals

Reduce Packaging

  1. Increase the use of reusable packaging alternatives
  2. Identify opportunities to reduce material volume through innovative design and restaurant policies
  3. See below for details and progress examples

Make Responsible Material Choices

  1. Increase the use of renewable and recycled materials
  2. Increase the use of fibre from recycled or certified sources within fibre-based guest-facing packaging1 fibre
  3. Globally, phase out intentionally added PFAS from guest-facing packaging by 2025
  4. Reduce problematic or unnecessary plastic – those which are difficult to recycle or compost due to their format, composition or size
  5. Reduce virgin plastics content in guest-facing, single-use packaging by 10% across our U.S. and Canadian home markets by 2026
  6. See below for details and progress examples

1Certified sources defined as sources certified by at least one of the following certification bodies: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) or Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)

Design for Circularity

Work to make our guest packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable within the markets in which we operate around the world.

See below for details and progress examples.

Recover and Recycle

Recycle guest packaging in restaurants globally, where commercially viable and where infrastructure is available.

See below for details and progress examples.

Our Strategy

Reduce Packaging

To reduce packaging waste, one approach our brands are exploring is to test and implement reusable alternatives, in a variety of formats.

In October 2020, Burger King® and Tim Hortons® announced a partnership with zero-waste packaging provider, Loop, to pilot a deposit-based new reusable and returnable packaging system for food and beverages on the go. Pilot testing began in five Tim Hortons restaurants in Toronto in 2021, and followed in five Burger King restaurants in New Jersey and four Burger King restaurants in the UK in Ipswich and one in Newmarket in 2022, each for a limited time. During the pilot period, guests could use any of the return bins located at participating restaurants to return their reusable cups or food containers, and would then be refunded their deposit via the Loop mobile app.

In May 2022, Tim Hortons launched a similar test in Vancouver in partnership with Return-It, building on what was learned in the Toronto pilot. The pilot is an example of a pre-competitive, private-public partnership that leverages a network of 60+ return points across the city, including in transit stations and other public locations. After returning their reusable cup, guests received their deposit back via e-transfer.

This work builds on a long history of promoting reusable alternatives for guest packaging. In 1978, Tim Hortons pioneered the reusable cup program with the TimMug. In Canada, Tim Hortons offers reusable cup programs where guests who bring in a reusable cup enjoy a discount on their coffee.

Burger King Denmark has also implemented and continues to use a reusable cup system for in-store guests. In 2020, Burger King Sweden piloted reusable cups for soda beverages in four restaurants, and, in 2021, Burger King France piloted reusable cups and cutlery for dine-in guests in one restaurant, before rolling out nationally in 2022. Testing and continued implementation of a variety of reusable packaging models also took place at select Burger King restaurants in Germany, Spain and Portugal in 2022. In 2024, both Burger King UK and Finland piloted reusable cup programs for dine-in guests in select restaurants.

In addition to increasing the adoption of reusable alternatives, finding opportunities to eliminate packaging items, or reduce the amount of material used for single-use packaging helps to reduce our total packaging footprint. For example, in 2021, napkins introduced across Tim Hortons restaurants in Canada and the United States used 25% less material than before, saving an estimated 900 tonnes of paper per year. The napkins are made of 100% recycled fibre, including 90% post-consumer content. In 2023, the brand launched a new breakfast and lunch wrapper featuring a design that uses 75% less material than the prior wrap box, which is estimated to save more than 1,400 tonnes of material a year.

Tim Hortons launches reusable and returnable cup pilot in Vancouver with Return-It as part of its mission to reduce single-use waste.

Making Responsible Material Choices

Across our brands at RBI, and in markets around the world, the two common categories of materials in our approved guest-facing packaging are Fibre and Plastic.

Fibre-Based Packaging

  1. As of December 2024, 90% of the approved, guest-facing fibre-based packaging across RBI globally comes from recycled or certified2 sources.
  2. Some examples of fibre-based packaging items that use recycled content today include the donut and muffin boxes, hot beverage sleeves, takeaway bags and napkins at Tim Hortons in Canada, and takeaway bags and napkins at Burger King in the U.S.
  3. A paper cup that contains 30% post-consumer recycled content has also been tested in select Canadian Tim Hortons restaurants.

2To qualify as compliant, 100% of the materials within the fibre of the approved packaging item must be made from pre- or post-consumer recycled materials and must be third-party verified, unless certified under a Chain of Custody forest management standard, such as the FSC.

Plastic Packaging

Our first objective when it comes to plastic packaging is to reduce problematic or unnecessary plastics that are hard to recycle due to their format, composition or size, and which are more likely to end up in the environment. Each year our brands continue to make progress towards this goal:

  1. EPS foam, which is difficult to recycle, has been eliminated globally from approved guest packaging as of 2022, and brands have required that markets do not use EPS foam3 for any local guest packaging items.
  2. Tim Hortons has significantly evolved their packaging portfolio over the last four years to reduce hard-to-recycle single-use plastics
    1. In 2019, the brand launched a strawless cold beverage lid in Canada and the U.S. that uses 15% less plastic than the former lid and straw combination, and in 2021, for frozen beverages that still require the use of a straw, paper straws replaced plastic straws across Canada. Together, these changes help avoid an estimated 420 million plastic straws annually.
    2. Tim Hortons also launched wooden stir sticks in Canada and the U.S., which avoided 75 million plastic stir sticks annually.
    3. For sandwiches and bagels, fully recyclable paper-based wrappers introduced in 2021 helped to eliminate more than 460 tonnes of plastics annually compared to previous packaging.
    4. In 2023, Tim Hortons restaurants across Canada introduced wooden and fibre cutlery for guests, eliminating an estimated use of 90 million single-use plastics a year.
    5. Plastic lids on Loaded Bowls were replaced with fibre lids.
    6. In addition, the brand developed a plastic-free fibre lid for hot beverages which was trialed for 12 weeks in Vancouver in 2022. In 2024, the plastic-free, recyclable fibre lids were piloted for hot beverages in an additional 39 restaurants in Prince Edward Island and Ottawa.

    3Standard requires that no CFC blowing agents should be added during the manufacturing of the polystyrene packaging.

    1. In 2021, , Burger King U.S. piloted strawless cold beverage lids as well as paper straws in 51 restaurants in Miami. Internationally, Burger King India banned single use plastics, and continues to use materials like birch wood for forks, spoons and stirrers. The Burger King brand has also launched paper straws for soda beverages in seven European countries, with further expansion planned. Additionally, Burger King in Europe is transitioning 25 million plastic sundae cups to paper and avoiding 32 million plastic lids by introducing the Fusion paper flap cup. As of October 2022, Burger King UK removed plastic lids from dine-in soft drinks in restaurants nationwide as part of an effort to reduce single-use plastic. The removal of lids for dine-in customers is estimated to remove 17 million plastic lids from circulation and save over 30,000kg of plastic each year.
    2. Cumulatively across Tim Hortons Canada and Burger King markets in Europe and China, we switched over an estimated 1 billion traditional plastic straws to alternative materials in 2021.
    3. For a limited time during 2022, a hot beverage lid made of 25% post-consumer recycled material was made available at select Tim Hortons restaurants in Saskatchewan.

Ensuring Safe, Quality Materials

  1. When it comes to making responsible material choices, we continuously review our policies on raw material sourcing and have specific requirements for the approved products that are used in our restaurants to ensure food safety.
  2. In the United States, this means ensuring our product and packaging specifications are compliant with FDA standards, and applicable state and local laws. In Canada, this means our product and packaging specifications are compliant with Health Canada and Canadian Food Inspection Agency standards, as well as local laws. Outside of North America, our products are compliant with local regulation.
  3. As part of our commitment to safe ingredients, our product specifications require that all approved plastic toys and promotional drinkware not contain bisphenol A (“BPA”) and prohibit the use of perfluorooctanoic acid (“PFOA”) within our approved paper and packaging products. This policy applies to all guest-facing approved packaging suppliers that conduct business with the Tim Hortons®, Burger King®, Popeyes® and Firehouse Subs® brands and is monitored for compliance by the RBI Quality Assurance team.
  4. Tim Hortons®, Burger King®, Popeyes® and Firehouse Subs® brands require any added4 perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”) to be phased out from all approved, guest-facing packaging materials5 globally by the end of 2025. As of 2024, Tim Hortons®, Burger King®, Popeyes® and Firehouse Subs® have eliminated intentionally added PFAS from approximately 97% of approved guest packaging volumes globally. For these items, we continue our work to transition to alternative materials that achieve the same functional characteristics without the need for added PFAS.

4When testing packaging materials for Total Fluorine the results may indicate that trace amounts of Fluorine are present, when in practice no PFAS have been added to the packaging in the production process. This can result from Fluorine being embedded in materials and the manufacturing process – test results are unlikely to show no Fluorine, but elevated levels are a sign of added Fluorinated compounds. We continue to work with packaging vendors to test incoming raw materials to ensure added PFAS are not included in our packaging, including in the recycled content of our paper packaging.

5For purposes of this requirement, ‘Guest-facing packaging’ is defined as any item which arrives to a Tim Hortons®, Burger King®, Popeyes® or Firehouse Subs® restaurant with no contents, for the sole purpose of packaging a Tim Hortons®, Burger King®, Popeyes® or Firehouse Subs® food or drink product in-restaurant to serve to a guest. Food and drink items that are pre-packaged or branded product by suppliers (product manufactured, packaged and marketed, commonly with the producer’s logos/branding), by a third party are not in scope, and packaging of products sold by RBI brands through third-party retailers is not in scope.

Design for Circularity

One of our waste reduction strategies is to serve guests the food they love in packaging that can be recycled or composted in their local communities. One challenge we face is that some communities and regions lack the necessary facilities or incentives to effectively process all types of plastics and materials in our packaging.

To tackle this challenge, we recognize that we have an opportunity to improve the design of our packaging to support acceptance in local waste diversion programs, so we’re working to make our guest packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable within the markets in which we operate around the world.

Tim Hortons has led the way across our brands to work towards improving the recoverability of hot beverage cups and lids. In January 2022, the brand launched a test of an innovative new hot beverage cup design at select Vancouver restaurants, featuring cups that are made with up to 20 per cent post-consumer recycled content. This design allows a greater proportion of the cup's paper fibre to be recovered in the repulping process. The aim is to drive better economics for those that collect and repurpose post-consumer material and could help in our goal to have more recycling programs across Canada accept Tims cups. Currently, Tim Hortons hot beverage cups can be recycled in British Columbia and in some municipalities in other provinces. We continue to work with key stakeholders in industry and government to support the cup being accepted within municipal programs.

In addition, Tim Hortons hot beverage lid is made from polypropylene (PP), a material type that is accepted in the vast majority of curbside recycling programs across Canada. Beyond making the switch to PP, in 2022 Tim Hortons changed the colour of their standard hot beverage lids from brown to white across Canada.

Tim Hortons Canada also launched new paper-based wrappers for bagels and sandwiches in 2021 that replaced plastic-lined wrappers and are now fully recyclable. Burger King Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, and Switzerland have also transitioned to plastic-free wraps for sandwiches.

Recover and Recycle

Recycling remains an important pillar of our packaging strategy. We are founding members of Circular Materials, where we are working together with industry leaders to advance the circular economy in which materials are collected, recycled and returned to producers for use as recycled content in new products and packaging. One example is a pilot in Toronto, Ontario, that allows residents to recycle hot and cold paper beverage cups, an initiative that marks the first step towards incorporating these materials in recycling systems across all municipalities in Ontario by 2026.

Additionally, in 2021, Tim Hortons piloted artificial intelligence-assisted technology at select restaurants across Canada with the goals of providing recycling and composting education for guests and driving increased recycling and diversion rates. Through a partnership with Vancouver-based Intuitive AI, waste bins at 12 restaurants across Canada will be equipped with a screen and product image recognition technology to identify packaging items that guests scan. The screen provides guidance to guests on whether the items they scanned can be recycled or go into the compost bin or should go in the waste bin. The test period will begin with an analysis of how guests are currently using the waste, recycling and compost bins in select restaurants before the on-screen guidance is turned on. The technology has now been installed at test restaurants in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.

In restaurants, we continue to work alongside our franchisees to facilitate access to recycling where commercially viable and infrastructure is available. Globally, recycling is a complex and constantly evolving field, with variations in collection approaches between countries – and even between neighbouring cities. This requires the consideration of several effective solutions rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. We will work with communities, governments, and recycling facilities to advance progress in the area of waste collection, processing and diversion while seeking out new initiatives and more innovative ways for our packaging to flow through the system, avoid landfills, and limit our environmental impact.

Partnerships & Memberships