McDonald's weighs printing car plates on packaging to curb litter in Wales

If McDonald’s puts car registration numbers on drive-through packaging in Wales, the first people to deal with the fallout will not be policy teams in corporate offices. Crew members and store managers would be the ones handing out the bags, fielding customer complaints about privacy, and absorbing any confrontation when a littered wrapper points back to a vehicle.

The idea was discussed publicly on November 21, 2022, at Swansea Council’s Climate Change Corporate Delivery Committee, where Chris Howell, the council’s head of waste, parks and cleansing, said the Welsh Government had explored it with McDonald’s or its franchisees. Howell said the plan had merit but was “fraught with some difficulties,” warning that some customers might simply switch to Burger King rather than have private details printed on packaging. He also raised the practical question of which fast-food chains would “go first,” a signal that any rollout would be as much about frontline execution as environmental policy.

The proposal grew out of pressure from Plaid Cymru, which had launched a petition two years earlier calling for fast-food companies to print number plates on drive-through packaging after litter increased following the first coronavirus lockdown. The Welsh Government said littering was not acceptable and said it was working on a new prevention plan with businesses and councils. For restaurant workers, that kind of scheme would mean more than a new packaging line. It would likely require tighter handoffs at the drive-through window, more explanation to customers, and more management time spent dealing with complaints, privacy concerns and the possibility of spillover to other chains.

The issue lands in a company already trying to show it can police its own litter problem. In June 2024, McDonald’s said its UK litter patrols dated back to 1982, when McDonald’s UK became the first restaurant company to introduce them. The company said UK restaurant teams now go out three times a day to cover 150 meters around each restaurant, walking an estimated 3,000 miles a week. That is already a significant operational load for restaurant crews and managers, who have to balance cleaning routes with service, labor coverage and drive-through demand.

Keep Wales Tidy has also tied McDonald’s into the wider cleanup effort. In 2024, it said McDonald’s sponsored 22 litter-picking hubs across Wales, helping support 156 clean-ups, 1,290 people and the removal of 1,365 bags of rubbish. The group also supports changing the law so number plates can be printed on takeaway packaging, allowing vehicle owners to be fined if the packaging is littered. Swansea Council, meanwhile, said it was forecasting a 70% household waste recycling rate in 2022-23, up from just under 48% a decade earlier, and a commercial recycling rate of just under 58%, with 1,500 commercial customers.