Black mold growing on the dispensers at my local McDonald's

Buttflapper@lemmy.world to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 361 points –
48

Send that to your local health department.

I'm in Georgia, they honestly could not care less. I've contacted them in the past about issues and they really did not care

Maybe try McDonalds corporate then? I believe they have quite a bit of sway over local franchises.

Beyond that, I'd just avoid it because that's probably the tip of a very dirty iceberg.

Unfortunately that's the type of shit where publicly shaming on Twatter is likely a more effective option.

20 year old dispenser there too. (date code says 08/05)

I genuinely cannot process what I'm looking at here.

I think we're looking up at a drinks dispenser, one where you push your cup against the metal thing to start filling.

The black piece in front is the nozzle where your drink comes out of the metal bit at the back is the thing you push your cup onto to dispense the drink

I stared at it for like 3 minutes and suddenly it flipped and all made sense, like a proper optical illusion.

The metal comes down and to the right, then bends back to the left. The shadow is the reflection off the metal. The metal is coming down and out of a hole. The white area is a completely flat surface.

Toxic black mold is a greenish-black gelatinous mold. It is not really black. Mold is not healthy and some people have severe negative reactions to regular black molds though.

  1. Wtf, there is a Wikipedia just for mold?

  2. How can it feature 0 pictures

My mom has a strong allergic reaction to mold. Her nostrils blocks (similar to a strong flu) when she touches some moldy object or enter in a moldy room.

Employees can daily clean as much of the machine as they can access, and there will still be a bit of black biofilm in there (not mold). The same biofilm lives down in all of your sink drains.

That's ok. The "clean" ones are dripping with invisible toxic cleaning product.

I once got a cup full of dlihydrogen monoxide when using one of these machines. Let me tell you that it was an experience...

Quite unusual, was it pure? As far as I know they always mix it with other nasty stuff beig it an excellent polar solvent

I dunno what that was, but I got a cup of something transparent and not tasty once at BK. Don't think I felt too bad, maybe cause I stopped drinking that immediately.

"Corporate wishes to play a little game. Whom do you value more? Your co-workers or the customers? If you report this health code violation, the store may have to shut down and everyone working there laid off. If you remain silent, you may indirectly kill countless customers. You have 30 seconds to decide." - Ronald "Jigsaw" McDonald

Oh, and the toilet rolls have been replaced with duct tape rolls.

Depending on which country you live in and who (or better: what) you are - if you're a McD McEmployee, you'll might personally feel the McWrath for filing the complaint - not just having the weight of theorethical jobs lost on your soul.

I remember working in fast food and almost nobody ever thought to clean the nozzles or clean out the ice bin.

There is probably a ton of mold inside where the ice is kept.

When I worked at subway.... Fuck me 10 years ago this month...

We pulled them nipples and the inserts off every night and rinsed them in hot water, then left em overnight in sanitizer solution, and I (being 6'4") had to clean the ice holder every 2 weeks to a month, never got told bad in there thanks to that

There was a picture our boss would show you of what happens when you don't that convinced everybody to clean it religiously. We got free drinks from the machine, after all, we'd only be killing ourselves faster with that shit being dirty

Friendlys does! Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, we β€œcleaned” them by letting them sit in seltzer and then wiping them off before reattaching them. I’m only now realizing that we went to so much effort to do that, but using the same sanitizer as the soft serve machines would have been significantly more effective and easier.

It at least keeps things like black mold or giant bacterial colonies from getting hold, but it’s kind of pointless.

What is it dispensing?

McDonald's USA has free soft drink refills.

In Canada we don't, but you still fill your own cup. Is that not typical?

Uhhh... we don't? If so I'm probably going to jail.

Lol, we can't both be right, unless it's regional. Someone here is in the lucky 10,000. If it's me at least that means no crimes have been committed.

Here in Australia they fill it and give it to you, no refills.

Currently. Iirc, this is being removed company wide. I know the ones near me recently renovated and no long have customer accessible drink machines.

I’m always torn on this. God bless America, but it also feels irresponsible.

I worked at an Arby's back in high school (over 20 years ago). They told me free refills were a thing because most customers don't refill more than once, if at all. Also, the soda water costs pennies and the bags of concentrated soda syrup were only like $10 (at the time). A single bag of syrup, mixed with soda water, could fill customer's soda cups for maybe 2-3 days before it needed to be replaced. Fast food restaurants make insane profits on soda, so they don't care if customers refilled multiple times during their visit.

If that is what an easy to clean outer surface looks like... just imagine what the inside looks like.

Their food is low quality and nasty, they treat their workers like shit and they union-bust as often as possible.

I didn't really need another reason to not support them anymore, but this is good none the less, here have an upvote!

It’s quite funny that in both Germany and Poland McDonald’s is actually one of the most decent places in case of food quality (not amazing taste but one can be sure it won’t cause any health issues) and employees are also treated quite well (for the industry).

As someone who works in the industry, always assume there is mold. Always assume equipment isn't cleaned as often as it should be. Always assume everything is gross.

Spent 12 years in commercial refrigeration. Absolutely, and "expensive" doesn't mean things are any cleaner. I was in some 5 star places that had some of the nastiest kitchens.

still not the most concerning health hazard from eating mcdonalds. 🀣

just put on lab goggles, douse it in and out with hot water mixed with sodium hydroxide, put a sign up that says "do not touch, guaranteed caustic burns", and fuck off and feign ignorance.