McDonald's Japan ends Pokemon card Happy Meal giveaway amid alarming food waste
The promotion, which began on Friday and was scheduled to continue till Monday, allowed customers who purchased a Happy Meal, priced at a little more than 500 yen (£2.50), to receive a special Pikachu trading card along with one of five other Pokémon cards.
However, demand overwhelmed stores across Japan, and the chain announced that distribution had effectively ended at many locations by late Friday.
In a brief statement on their website, McDonald's Japan cited 'higher‑than‑expected sales' and 'sincerely apologised for not meeting the expectations of customers'.
'Please refrain from contacting stores regarding stock availability,' the statement ended.
However, reports on social media and local media seemed to suggest that resellers were primarily to blame for the sales. People described long queues, mobile ordering abuse where the same individual used multiple accounts to bypass the imposed five‑meal limit per person, along with pictures of unopened Happy Meals left scattered in restaurants or dumped on the streets immediately after the card was retrieved.
'I feel sorry for the crew making the burgers. The crew's smiles looked so sad. Is this really okay?' one person asked on X, formerly Twitter, along with a picture that showed a row of discarded meal packages.
Another described the scene in Tokyo's Shibuya district, writing: 'The chaos of early morning Shibuya. As a result of McDonald's burgers and fries being scattered on the street, it seems a grand pigeon feast is being held. We kindly ask that you take responsibility for finishing the food you purchase and take your trash with you.'
Campaign Asia additionally reported that tensions in some outlets escalated to the point where customers called the police amid confrontations with suspected scalpers, while another video on X allegedly shows a customer attempting to buy 40 packs of the Happy Meals.
The backlash was particularly jarring due to Japan's waste culture, where citizens are typically expected to carry their rubbish home due to a widespread lack of public trash bins. This practice, which stems from both post-war civic norms and reinforced after the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attacks, resulted in many on social media asking why and how Japanese people were willing to discard entire meals in public.
Individual 'Burger Pikachu' cards and booster packs began to be listed online on reselling websites for several times the cost of the Happy Meal, some going up to thousands of yen.
Some social media users posted screenshots of the cards being listed for as much as 2,555,400 yen (£12,782). Another posted a video from the store where 'over 100 people are lined up in front,' along with another picture of a reselling website with prices from for the cards starting from 300 yen (£1.50) and going up to 9,999 yen (£50).
On eBay, a search showed the McDonald's special Pikachu card listed for anywhere between $44 (£32) to $28.10 (£21), as well as other packs containing 10-20 random Pokémon trading cards being sold for nearly $250 (£185).
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
7 hours ago
- BBC News
Claire's was glitz 'heaven' for kids before Shein and TikTok came along
For Beth Searby, a Saturday as a teenager wasn't complete without going to Claire's with her that tweenage rite of passage looks uncertain as the future of the chain hangs in the and her friends would use their pocket money in the late noughties to buy magnetic earrings, badges and toe rings from the accessories brand."You never went home empty-handed," says Beth, now 30. Shopping there was like an "analogue Temu," she says."You could go in with your bits of change that you had left from buying your McDonald's or your Burger King and you could pick up a pair of earrings or a necklace or a badge to put on your school bag and you'd be spending 50p, £1, £2." Claire's has appointed administrators in the UK and Ireland after battling with falling sales and high competition. It said its 278 shops in the UK and 28 in Ireland would continue trading while it considered "the best possible path forward", but it's stopped online a US brand, Claire's opened its first UK store in the mid-90s and quickly became a mainstay among tweens who flocked there for affordable hair ties, glittery butterfly clips, matching friendship necklaces and lip gloss. "It was the ultimate shop for young people," says Ella Clancy, 29. She remembers using her pocket money to buy earrings, scrunchies and Lip Smacker lip balms from Claire's as a teenager. Particularly memorable are the so-called "nerd glasses" she and her friends got there - glasses with chunky, dark frames and no shops were always "super pink and colourful and girly," she says."When you're a little girl, it's sort of like heaven," says Vianne Tinsley-Gardener, 23. She would go to the Claire's stores in Braintree, Essex, to buy keyrings, earrings and shops were full of "unique little knick-knacks", she lucky dips bags - where you didn't know what you were getting - and multibuy offers like its five items for £10 deal turned shopping there into a treasure hunt and catered to tweens' was a staple for young people getting their ears pierced, too - and it often had special deals. But many Claire's shoppers found that some point during their time at secondary school, the brand just stopped being cool. They turned to places like Accessorize, Topshop and Primark was the case for Ceara Silvano, 23. She remembers it became too "kiddish" when she was about 13 and she started shopping at Primark instead."You do just grow out of stuff like that," Ceara says - though she still returned later to have her ears pierced at Claire's. Al Thomann loved Claire's when they were younger because of its use of bright colours, glitter and floral designs. But as they grew up, they too started to see the brand as "childish" and stopped shopping there."You start to feel like you're a young adult, and all around me, most of the adults were not shopping at Claire's," Al, now 25, says. "Aspiring to be an adult meant rejecting that sort of childlike, colourful, rainbow, unicorn whimsy." How young people shop is changing Back in the 2000s and 2010s, young people bought things because they liked them, rather than because they were trendy, says Constance Richardson, who owns the personal styling business By Constance thanks to rising use of social media, young people are keeping up-to-date with what's stylish online."Shein can spot a trend on TikTok and have that live within days, often for much less money" than Claire's, says Georgia Wright, a reporter at Retail a Chinese online fast-fashion giant, sells a huge range of items including clothes, accessories and stationery for low prices. Claire's, in comparison, doesn't pounce on trends as quickly, Ms Wright it can't compete on price, Miss Richardson says. "They're still selling novelty products at a non-novelty price." Another factor is that young people are often influenced by creators on social media who are much older than them - and don't shop at Claire's."Kids are growing up faster than ever," says Ms Wright. "You've got 11 year olds with five-step skincare routines."At the other end of the spectrum to Shein, they're turning to more premium brands like Sephora, Space NK and Astrid and Miyu, she "just doesn't deliver the same excitement," Ms Wright says. But the brand still holds a special place in many people's says she feels nostalgic about shopping at Claire's and wishes she'd kept some items as mementoes. Whenever Ella walks past Claire's stores, "it brings a little smile to my face".And some people say they still enjoy shopping at the brand. "As I started university and started thinking about my own sexuality and gender identity and how I wanted to present myself, the sort of items that Claire's sold once again came back into my field of knowledge," Al says. "All of the really beautiful, very unique earrings and necklaces, bracelets, flower crowns, those kinds of things, were almost instruments to display my own identity in a way that was visible."
Daily Mail
10 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Veteran 'Superman' Li Ka-Shing could save Thames Water
The fate of crisis-torn Thames Water is set to be decided within weeks as Ministers prepare to effectively nationalise the troubled utilities firm before getting it ready for a sale. And the front-runner in any bidding war for the debt-laden supplier to 16 million customers in London and the Thames Valley is likely to be a business conglomerate controlled by one of Asia's richest men. Last week, reports emerged that CK Infrastructure (CKI), which also owns Northumbrian Water, had told the Government it was prepared to take over Thames imminently if it were to fall into special administration, buckling under the weight of £17 billion of debt. A successful takeover of Britain's largest water group would add another asset to the burgeoning portfolio of CKI's parent firm, CK Hutchison (CKH), which controls a globe-spanning empire encompassing pub chains, container ports and High Street stores. Behind it all is Li Ka-Shing, CKH's founder, considered the most successful tycoon in Hong Kong's history after amassing a fortune worth nearly £30 billion. The 97-year-old, who arrived in the British colony in 1940 aged 12 as a refugee from the Sino-Japanese war, is called 'Superman' by locals for his business acumen. Li is the firm's 'senior advisor' after stepping down as chairman in 2018 after 46 years at the helm. Despite his advanced years, the tycoon remains involved in the business and still goes into the office twice a week. He can also be spotted at the Tsz Shan Monastery, a ten-year-old Buddhist temple that Li financed to the tune of £142 million. CKH remains a family concern, with Li's son Victor serving as chairman. His UK empire includes the 226-year-old Greene King pub chain, bought for £4.6 billion in 2019 through one of the family's other businesses, CK Asset Holdings. Other assets include retailer Superdrug and UK Power Networks, the electricity grid operator for London and the South-East. CKH also owned mobile network Three before its merger with rival Vodafone earlier this year. It now controls just under half of the new business, which leapfrogged BT's EE to become Britain's biggest mobile phone provider. CKH's eyeing up of Thames Water comes as the conglomerate's British operations become increasingly profitable. Last week, CKH's half-year results saw underlying profits rise 11 per cent to £1.1 billion as sales rose to £22.6 billion from £21.8 billion in 2024. But overall profits fell 92 per cent to £80.3 million due to a one-off £983 million loss from the Vodafone-Three merger. Included in the figures were results from CKI, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange but is controlled by CKH. CKI reported that its profits from the UK had jumped 19 per cent since last year thanks to 'higher contributions' from Northumbrian Water as well as its electricity grid arm and three British gas networks it also controls. Despite the firm's success in Britain, a swoop on Thames Water has sparked fear among those who are wary of handing over control of vital infrastructure to a Chinese company. On Thursday, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said a takeover by Li's firm risked handing 'a country that is a threat, greater power over national infrastructure'. It has also caused consternation in the US Congress. But Li's history is not all kowtowing to Beijing, with the tycoon having butted heads with China's communist authorities in the past. When Hong Kong saw a wave of pro-democracy protests in 2019, the government of the People's Republic accused Li of 'harbouring criminality' and allowing the city to 'slip into the abyss' when he called for police to show 'humanity' dealing with demonstrators. More recently, CKH has found itself caught in Donald Trump's trade war with China. Earlier this year, the company was forced to delay the sale of 43 ports, including two in the crucial Panama Canal, to a consortium backed by US asset manager BlackRock after Beijing criticised the deal. In its results, Victor Li said the firm expected global trade to 'remain volatile' as Trump's tariffs reverberated through the market. But despite the headwinds, CKH raised its half-year dividend by 3.2 per cent, landing the elder Li, who controls just over 28 per cent of the business, a £72 million payday. With Thames Water sinking under its own debt, Ministers may overlook CKH's Chinese ties in the absence of a better offer. Lower-ranking holders of Thames Water's debt are also understood to be keen on a long-term infrastructure owner such as CKH. The firm has reportedly said it would agree to new rules imposing tougher fines for breaking environmental regulations, which the water group's senior hedge fund creditors have said is financially unviable. Ministers will be hoping Hong Kong's 'Superman' can save the day.
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘A structural dependence on heavy industry': can South Korea wean itself off fossil fuels?
GDP per capita per annum: US$34,640 (global average $14,210) Total annual tonnes CO2: 577.42.m (tenth highest country) CO2 per capita: 11.16 metric tonnes (global average 4.7) Most recent NDC (carbon plan): 2021 Climate plans: highly insufficient On a cool early morning on South Korea's east coast, Eunbin Kang pointed to a monument to a vanishing era. The 2.1GW Samcheok Blue power plant which came online in South Korea in January looms out of the headlands above a beach made internationally famous by a K-pop album shoot. It is expected to emit 13m tonnes of CO2 annually, while its lifespan could stretch beyond 2050, the year by which the country has pledged to reach carbon neutrality. The country was building coal-fired power plants, said Kang, an activist who heads the Youth Climate Emergency Action group and relocated to this city to oppose the facility, 'even as the climate emergency demands an immediate halt to fossil fuel expansion'. But Samcheok is not an outlier. It is a symbol of the stark climate contradiction at the heart of the world's 12th largest economy, celebrated for its technological prowess in semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries, yet among the top ten worst global climate performers. Despite South Korea's impressive climate pledges to reach net zero by 2050 with a 40% reduction in emissions from 2018 levels by 2030, fossil fuels still dominate its energy mix: 60% of electricity comes from coal and gas, while renewables make up just 9%, a quarter of the OECD average of 34%. Monopoly strangling transition At the heart of South Korea's climate failure is an energy model based on a state monopoly and central planning. Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), the state-owned energy company, controls transmission, distribution and retail, while its subsidiaries dominate generation, creating structural challenges for competitors. These include Korea South-East Power, Korea Western Power and four other generation subsidiaries that together operate the vast majority of the country's coal, gas and nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, renewable energy developers face an obstacle course of regulatory barriers. Until recently, windfarm developers had to obtain 28 different permits from multiple ministries in a bureaucratic maze which created years of delays and significantly increased project costs, making many otherwise viable developments financially unfeasible. Progress was made in early 2025 with the passage of a long-awaited bill aimed at streamlining approvals, although the law won't take effect until 2026. Grid connection remains another hurdle. While electricity demand has grown by 98% over the past two decades, the transmission network has expanded by just 26%, but attempts to expand the grid have led to bitter local conflicts. In Miryang, South Gyeongsang province, the government tried to compel residents to sell up to clear space for transmission towers and people faced violent crackdowns during a six-year standoff. Currently, a dozen such projects are stalled in the country. In February 2025, the National Assembly passed a Power Grid Special Act aimed at expanding transmission. But civic groups warn the law reinforces the country's decades-old top-down model of infrastructure development, removing what few safeguards remained around public consultation and environmental review. 'We fully acknowledge that renewable energy transition requires transmission lines,' says Kim Jeong-jin from Friends of the Earth in Dangjin, where one project faced more than 10 years of delays due to local opposition. 'But the repeated conflicts arise because the electricity is not even for local use, yet it causes damage to our region without any regard for our voices.' The country's energy strategy is guided by the Basic Plan for Electricity Supply and Demand, a 15-year forecast revised every two years. But the framework, which dates back to the 1960s, still prioritises centralised, large-scale power generation – a model built for coal and nuclear, and fundamentally incompatible with today's decentralised, flexible renewable technologies. Political volatility worsens the problem. Each five-year presidential term brings a policy reversal. For instance, in 2017, President Moon Jae-in announced a nuclear phase-out; his successor, the now disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, reversed course five years later. This whiplash undermines any long-term planning for renewables – a problem faced by democracies around the world. The consequences are stark. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent fossil fuel prices soaring, Kepco incurred enormous losses. In 2022 alone, South Korea faced an extra 22tn won (£11.9 bn) in LNG power costs. Yet the government kept electricity prices artificially low, a political choice that pushed Kepco's debt to a staggering 205tn won (£111bn) by 2024. Despite this crisis, meaningful reform remains elusive. This entrenched monopoly system has effectively blocked the clean energy transition, with independent renewable producers struggling to gain meaningful access to a market dominated by fossil fuel interests. Carbon-intensive by design More broadly, South Korea's postwar rise relied on energy-intensive industries: steel, petrochemicals, shipbuilding and semiconductors. 'This structural dependency on heavy and chemical industries makes the energy transition extraordinarily difficult,' says Park Sangin, a professor of economics at Seoul National University. 'These industries are deeply embedded in the country's economic fabric and require vast amounts of stable, cheap electricity.' Powerful chaebols, or family-controlled conglomerates like Posco, Samsung and Hyundai, exert outsized influence on national policy. Their operations are supported by an electricity market designed for industrial stability, not climate mitigation. And the problem isn't just domestic; South Korea also finances and provides the infrastructure for fossil fuels globally. South Korean shipbuilders dominate the global market for LNG carriers. Public financial institutions also bankroll overseas fossil fuel projects. One that was recently approved, the Coral Norte gas project in Mozambique, is projected to emit 489m tonnes of CO2 across its lifecycle. At the same time, South Korea has emerged as one of the world's top importers of Russian fossil fuels, even as other nations cut ties. 'This financing directly contradicts [South] Korea's climate targets and makes a mockery of the Paris Agreement,' says Dongjae Oh, the head of the gas team at Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC). 'It exposes the country's hypocrisy – adopting climate targets at home while funding climate destruction abroad.' Even climate-friendly institutions continue backing fossil fuels. The National Pension Service (NPS), one of the world's largest pension funds, remains a major investor in coal and gas projects, despite a 2021 'coal-free' declaration. Three and a half years after this announcement, NPS only finalised its coal divestment strategy in December 2024, with a timeline that will delay implementation for domestic assets until 2030. Meanwhile, South Korea's market-based climate policies have failed to drive meaningful change. The emissions trading scheme (K-ETS) was supposed to put a price on carbon when it launched in 2015. But the system, which hands out free allowances to the largest companies, has instead created perverse incentives, according to campaign group Plan 1.5. The group carried out an analysis and found that South Korea's 10 largest polluters have made over 475bn won (£258bn) from selling unused carbon credits between 2015 and 2022. The system that was meant to make polluters pay has instead rewarded them. Next generation fights back There is growing awareness of a climate crisis as the country begins to experience increasingly severe weather. In 2023 46 people died in floods that displaced thousands. More recently, torrential rains have again caused at least 26 deaths, followed by a record-breaking heatwave. In March this year devastating wildfires swept across more than 48,000 hectares (118,610 acres) – roughly 80% of the area of Seoul – killing 31 people and destroying thousands of homes. The country's disaster chief described the situation as 'a climate crisis unlike anything we've experienced before'. The prime minister, Kim Min-seok, has described the climate crisis as 'the new normal'. Now a new generation of South Koreans is challenging the status quo through legal action. In February, a group of children gathered outside Posco's office in Seoul. Among them was 11-year-old Yoohyun Kim, the youngest plaintiff in a groundbreaking lawsuit against Posco. The case aims to block the company's plan to reline an old coal-fired blast furnace, a move that would extend its life by 15 years and emit an estimated 137m tonnes of CO2. 'I came here during my precious winter break, my last as an elementary school student, because I want to protect all four seasons,' Yoohyun told supporters. 'Spring and autumn are disappearing with climate change – and with them, the chance for children like me to play freely outside.' The lawsuit is the first of its kind globally to target traditional blast furnace production. It follows a crucial ruling by South Korea's constitutional court last August which found that the government's climate policies violated the rights of future generations by failing to set legally binding targets for 2031-50. In March, residents and activists filed another suit over the government's approval of the world's largest semiconductor cluster in Yongin, backed by a 360tn won (£195bn) Samsung investment. The suit argues that the project's 10GW electricity demand and new LNG plants contradict climate regulations and corporate sustainability commitments. Kim Jeongduk, an activist from Political Mamas who participated in protests against the Samcheok Blue plant with her child, sees this as a generational struggle. 'Growing up in Pohang, I saw smokestacks fill the sky on my way to school every day. My throat would hurt from fine dust, and iron particles would collect on our windowsills,' she recalls. 'Adults always said: 'Thanks to Posco, our region survives.' I don't want my child to grow up with that same false choice between a healthy environment and economic survival.' The international data shows that South Korea's emissions peaked in 2018, and have been falling, with a brief jump after Covid, ever since. The government maintains that it is making progress on its climate goals, although critics argue that it is relying on some wonky calculations around its 2030 emission reduction target, confusing net with gross emissions. 'South Korea is actively pursuing bold reduction of coal power generation through prohibiting new permits for coal power plants and phasing out ageing facilities,' the ministry said in a statement, arguing that any remaining coal plants operating beyond 2050, such as those approved before the 2021 ban, would be addressed through 'carbon capture and storage technology and clean fuel conversion' in a way 'not inconsistent with our carbon neutrality commitment'. But independent analysis suggests these measures fall well short. 'The Basic Plan has no specific plan for how to expand renewable energy,' says Prof Park. 'There are vague targets, but no timeline, no locations. In stark contrast, the nuclear roadmap is extremely detailed and specific.' His recent research using the Global Change Assessment Model shows the current plan would fall short of meeting South Korea's 2030 emissions targets by approximately 6-7%. A more ambitious policy focused on offshore wind expansion and a complete phase-out of coal by 2035 could not only meet climate goals but reduce power sector emissions by 82% by 2035. When confronted with criticisms of its emissions accounting, South Korea's environment ministry defended its approach: 'Our emissions reduction target calculation method considers international regulations and major country cases. Countries like Japan and Canada use similar calculation methods for their 2030 NDCs,' a spokesperson said. The ministry added that although previous targets used the older 1996 IPCC guidelines, from 2024 they have begun using the updated 2006 standards for national greenhouse gas statistics. Back in Samcheok, Eunbin Kang looks out at the coal plant that now dominates the coastal landscape. 'I dream of a society where exploitation and plunder are replaced by decentralisation and autonomy,' she says. 'I want to contribute to spreading lifestyles and policies that allow everyone to lead a good life without requiring a lot of electricity or money.'
