Much opposition to McDonald's has centered on their wasteful attitude to packaging and rubbish. In the past supposed recycling schemes have been exposed as a scam - while customers were putting rubbish in seperate recycling bins at the end of the day everything was thrown out as usual. Many residents groups object to the opening of new stores citing increased litter and noise as the main reasons. Recently in Germany a court has ruled that McDonald's have to pay an anti-rubbish tax on disposable dishes, cans and packaging. The tax, first levied two years ago in the city of Kassel, near Frankfurt, was challenged by the fast food giant on the grounds that it would take up to 80% of their profits, but the court was unimpressed with this argument and upheld the tax, noting that each outlet was generating 60 tonnes of plastic rubbish a year. The company already owes the city 800,000 Deutschmarks in back taxes. There have been success stories in other countries as well. The McToxics campaign returned masses of litter to the Chicago HQ, so much that the offices had to call in pest control to deal with the rat problem. The company capitulated, agreeing to stop the using styrofoam packaging.

Operation Send-it-Back aims to put pressure on McDonald's to stop them using unnecessary and poisonous packaging. Campaigners around the country have collected McLitter and returned it to the local store or sent it to the UK McDonald's HQ. Campaigners have produced a leaflet which gives more details about the problem, possible solutions and how to get involved.