Burger King finds itself embroiled in yet another scandal after disturbing video footage has emerged from Lake Worth, Florida, of a man wearing a Burger King employee uniform dumping a substance into a storm drain.
The footage was captured by Joseph May, a South Florida resident, who became concerned after he saw the Burger King employee pouring a substance into a storm drain. The Lantana Road Burger King location has a storm drain in its parking lot, and it was there that the Burger King employee poured the steaming liquid.
Mr. May says that he approached the Burger King employee and asked him “Sir, is that oil?” to which the employee replied “Yeah.” Mr. May replied to the employee and then took out his cell phone and recorded the video.
“I said, ‘You’re going to put it right in there,’ he said ‘uh huh’. I said, ‘Hold on a minute,’ so I took out my phone and started videotaping him.”
The video shows the Burger King employee tipping a metal container of used fry oil into the drain. Smoke and steam can be seen rising into the air, indicating that the oil was still hot when it was being dumped into the drain.
Mr. May took his grievance to Facebook , posting the full 1:28 video to his Facebook page , publicly outing the address of the Burger King location and calling for someone to be held accountable. Mr. May makes the point that Burger King, as an international franchise, should have a disposal company to take care of disposing of used fry oil and other hazardous substances.
WPTV West Palm Beach reportedly contacted the Florida Oceanographic Society and spoke with Mark Perry, the executive director, who confirmed that dumping any kind of substance other than water into a storm drain is a problem.
“Whatever is going to be put in the water that’s going down the storm drain is going to be a problem. It’s still a question of how long he’s been doing it and how much volume is actually going through the storm drain, which ends up in our waterways.”
WPTV West Palm Beach reported that they attempted to contact the Lake Worth Burger King restaurant and managed to speak to a woman who claimed to be the manager of the restaurant. However, when she was told what the phone call was about, she said that she had no comment and hung up the phone. WPTV West Palm Beach reportedly has also requested to speak with a spokesperson for Burger King but has not had a response.
To date, Mr. May’s Facebook post and video has been viewed over 712,000 times and has been shared more than 18,700 times. The video was also posted to YouTube, where it has been viewed over 11,600 times.
Only, As far as the eye can see, talk about short sighted creatures. Dump it, let others worry #burgerking https://t.co/Vx8ntAK4ZC
— Meuandthelot (@DriftingYarn) May 10, 2015
[Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images]
