In Berlin, Germany's capital city of 3.7 million residents, the daily rush hour relies heavily on "coffee-to-go". This convenience, however, generates an estimated 460,000 disposable paper-and-plastic cups discarded every day across the city. These cups, lined with polyethylene to prevent leakage, cannot be easily recycled in standard facilities and frequently end up littering public squares, clogging public bins, and increasing municipal waste management costs.
Currently, disposable cups make up nearly 10% of the volume of litter collected from Berlin's public parks and streets, costing the city senate millions of euros annually in cleanup fees.
The Berlin Senate is evaluating several policy interventions to curb this waste. One proposed measure is a local packaging tax (Verpackungssteuer) of €0.20 on all single-use beverage containers, a policy successfully pioneered by the city of Tübingen. Additionally, the senate is considering a total ban on single-use cups in public parks and municipal buildings. To support the transition, the city has funded a pilot scheme to subsidise the distribution of 50,000 reusable deposit-return cups (Mehrwegbecher) to independent cafes in the Kreuzberg and Mitte districts. Finally, strict regulations are under review that would introduce fines of up to €2,500 for cafes that fail to offer consumers a reusable alternative or charge more for using one.
Using the information provided in Extract B and your economic knowledge, discuss the likely success of policies to reduce the consumption of disposable single-use coffee cups in cities such as Berlin.
