DHL to face lawsuit over plastic-wrapped ads

A German action group called Letzte Werbung (last advertisement) is planning to sue Germany's largest postal company Deutsche Post over the delivery of its unwanted plastic-wrapped advertisement Einkaufaktuell, German media reported on Monday.

Deutsche Post would not allow recipients to opt out of receiving the magazine, "nor does it offer an alternative way to simply deregister from unwanted plastic mail", a spokesperson of Letzte Werbung told the newspaper WamS on Sunday.

Deutsche Post's advertisement magazine Einkaufaktuell is the most widespread advertisement magazines in Germany and reaches about 20 million households in Germany every week, according to Deutsche Post.

Individual customers could not cancel receiving the magazine because it would not be possible to "exclude individual recipients via name lists" in such a mass mailing business, a spokesperson of Deutsche Post told WamS.

Letzte Werbung is also criticizing the plastic-wrapping of the advertisement magazine. According to the German action group, the magazine by Deutsche Post would be responsible for around 1 billion plastic bags as well as 500 million kilograms of paper delivered to the mailboxes of German households every year.

Already, Deutsche Post would use a thinner plastic wrapping and lighter paper for Einkaufaktuell and the magazine would be printed with low emissions in order to reduce the environmental impact, according to the company.

Nonetheless, the German action group is describing unwanted advertisement sent by mail as a "senseless waste of plastic and paper" that would no longer be "contemporary".

In an initiative called "stop the plastic post", almost 60,000 German households have registered against receiving the unwanted advertisement magazine by Deutsche Post.

Letzte Werbung is expecting the lawsuit against Deutsche Post to be filed "in mid-August", the action group's spokesperson Katharina Wallmann told the German press agency (dpa).