LEICESTERSHIRE BUSINESS MAKES A ‘PLAY’ FOR MCDONALDS

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 6 January 2021

UPDATED: 6 January 2021

Red Monkey Play, a UK leading manufacturer of bespoke play equipment for schools, nurseries and leisure is pleased to announce the first completion in a number of sustainable playgrounds for McDonalds, using recycled Happy Meal Toys.

 

With a further 15 play areas to be designed and installed in the new year, Red Monkey Play is excited to be part of this sustainable pledge.

 

Using one million recycled happy meal toys for the first playground at Ronald McDonald Charities House Oxford, the entire team (28) at Red Monkey Play were honoured to create this bespoke play area.

 

It was all hands on deck to complete the first installation in Oxford (before Christmas). This unique and modern play area custom-built for McDonalds features an activity course, pyramid den, interactive wall and activity table - designed to be accessible to all children. It will also promote both physical and cognitive development.

 

One million toys were provided to Red Monkey Play by McDonalds’s and ‘melted down’ in a process carried out by Plaswood. Handmade at Red Monkey’s site in Wigston (Leicestershire), each element, fixture and feature of the playground was carefully hand crafted. It went through a rigorous safety check before being transported to Oxford for installation at Ronald McDonald Charities House.

 

Simon Winfield, Managing Director at Red Monkey Play says, “This has been a tremendous team effort and just like every project we work on, we have thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

We largely construct play areas from timber, however we see a significant opportunity with recycled plastic and whilst it is not currently widespread across the UK yet - we believe that future-thinking schools, child playgrounds and active play areas will see this as an opportunity to change.

 

To have more innovative ways of delivering sustainable playground solutions for our clients is something we welcome, we’re up for the challenge.”

 

Each playground is future proof too. Once the playground reaches its end of life, it has been designed to ensure it can be recycled again and again.

 

Pre-COVID, selected McDonald’s restaurants across the UK and Ireland held a ‘toy amnesty’ collecting in plastic toys to recycle. These toys, along with surplus toys from when the restaurant business closed during the first lockdown, have been given a new lease of life as part of this programme with the design and development from Red Monkey Play.

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