The German city of Freiburg has begun charging a local tax on single-use packaging for food and drinks, aiming to cut litter in public spaces and encourage reuse.
The single-use packaging tax, which took effect on 1 January 2026, will apply to disposable cups, plates, containers and cutlery used in takeaway and on-the-go contexts.
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Freiburg projects the measure will generate around €2.2m in revenue in its first year.
Details of the single-use packaging tax in Freiburg
Under the new regulation approved by Freiburg’s municipal council in May 2025, businesses that sell food and beverages in disposable packaging must pay a levy for each item used.
A charge of €0.50 is imposed on single-use beverage cups and meal containers such as plates and trays, while €0.20 is applied to disposable cutlery and straws longer than ten centimetres.
These charges are calculated per item rather than per transaction, so a single purchase with multiple disposable items will attract multiple levies.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataFreiburg’s approach draws on earlier local experiments with packaging taxes, notably in the city of Tübingen, where a similar consumption tax on throw-away packaging has operated since 2022 and has been upheld as legally permissible by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.
Objectives and implications for packaging waste management
The principal aim of the packaging tax is to reduce the visible presence of disposable food and drink packaging in public spaces and to shift demand toward reusable alternatives.
Local authorities hope that financial penalties on single-use packaging will prompt food service providers and consumers alike to embrace reusable packaging solutions.
Freiburg’s government has emphasised the tax’s role in funding public waste management and in supporting broader waste reduction goals at municipal events and markets.
The city is also promoting what it calls a “Mehrweg-offensive,” or reuse initiative, with particular focus on larger public gatherings to further reduce reliance on disposable materials.
Broader context of packaging taxes in Germany and Europe
Freiburg’s tax is part of a broader trend in environmental policy and packaging waste regulation across Germany and the European Union.
Other municipalities in southern Germany, including Konstanz, have introduced or are contemplating similar local levies following legal clarification that such taxes are constitutional and allowable under German law.
At the national and EU level, legislation is tightening around packaging and single-use plastics.
Germany is set to implement a Single-Use Plastics levy, derived from EU directives, requiring producers who place single-use plastic goods on the market to contribute to a fund for waste management and recycling costs.
Current regulatory developments also include proposals to adapt national packaging law to the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which will apply directly from 12 August 2026 and is expected to expand requirements on extended producer responsibility, recyclability standards and packaging labelling.
The Freiburg tax adds to a landscape in which both packaging waste reduction policies and economic instruments such as taxes and levies are being employed by governments and local authorities to address the environmental impacts of packaging materials, particularly single-use plastics and other disposable products.
