Small City Defeats McDonald's Over Plastic Packaging

McDonald's has lost a lawsuit against a city administration after the introduction of a new tax on disposable takeout packaging.

The ruling was made by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, Germany, on Wednesday afternoon. It will allow the small university city of Tübingen to charge takeout businesses a tax of up to 1.50 euros [$1.61] for disposable packaging associated with a single meal, the business section of German news outlet Der Spiegel reported.

The new tax was first introduced in January 2022 to incentivize local businesses to reduce their use of disposable packaging and waste within the city. The levy would introduce a euro charge of 50 cents [54 cents] for all disposable packaging and 20 cents [21 cents] for disposable cutlery, amounting to 1.50 euros. However, not all of the city's operators were willing to play ball.

Every year, 300 million tons of plastic are produced around the world, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Around 14 million tons end up in the ocean annually, posing a threat to both wildlife and human food safety.

McDonald's alone produced 162,000 tons of plastic in 2021, according to a report by the Word Wildlife Fund. However, the fast-food giant has committed to taking steps toward a more sustainable production line. For example, the company has said that, in that same year, 82.7 percent of its primary packaging materials were from recycled or certified sources.

In January 2022, the local McDonald's filed a case against the Tübingen administration to dispute the new packaging tax. The fast-food giant said it was a disproportionate measure to take and that its regional implementation would be unfair and unmanageable, according to the German branch of news outlet I Am Expat.

In March 2022, a local court ruled in favor of McDonald's. It said that the packaging tax was ineffective. However, when the case was brought to the federal authorities, the court ruled in favor of the tax.

The hearing on Wednesday afternoon was accompanied by representatives from the German Environmental Aid and Fridays for Future Tübingen.

"The German Environmental Aid (DUH) sees the packaging tax as an important opportunity for local authorities to declare war on the flood of waste, especially because there is still no nationwide one-way tax," the DUH said in a statement before the hearing. "The environmental and consumer protection association is calling for the nationwide switch to environmentally friendly reusable packaging from the fast-food giant McDonald's instead of continuing to fight for disposable waste."

Barbara Metz, the federal manager for the DUH, shared a tweet about the ruling on Thursday morning: "This is trend-setting! All cities must now follow the example of Tübingen!"

A study, published in the journal Nature in 2021, found that, in a sample of over 12 million pieces of ocean litter, the top three most frequently encountered items were plastic bags, plastic bottles, and food containers and cutlery. In other words, litter from takeout consumers made up a large majority of the surveyed plastic.

Newsweek has emailed McDonald's for comment.