Reasons To Be Cheerful · 38 days ago

The German City That Defied Mcdonald's and Dumped 'To-Go' Waste

When the historic German city of Tübingen began charging 50 cents for every disposable coffee cup and burger wrapper in 2022, McDonald's fought it all the way to the country's highest court - and lost. The packaging tax, designed to make single-use "just inconvenient enough that people would start thinking twice," has since quadrupled the use of reusable containers and visibly cleaned the city's medieval streets, even as revenue from the tax itself declines. "I don't have to think about whether it's worth the effort for even a second," says city administrator Claudia Patzwahl, noting the city spends far less administering the tax than it once did cleaning up waste. What began as one mayor's blunt experiment has become a legal precedent, with 155 other German cities now exploring a model that turns a coffee cup into a conversation and proves that sometimes the smallest financial nudge can shift an entire culture's relationship with waste.