Three Years, 1.6 Percent: What Germany Learned About Reusable Packaging

Two recent publications from WWF Deutschland – a practice report (April 2026) and a policy brief (August 2026) – approach the same question from opposite directions: why has reusable packaging failed to take hold in the takeaway food and drink segment, despite a legal obligation to offer it since 2023? The answer is uncomfortably simple. A mandate on its own does not change the cost structure, and where there is no enforcement, there is no effect.

Two documents, one lesson

WWF Deutschland published two connected documents in 2026. The first, Kreislaufwirtschaft in der Praxis: Wo Mehrweg schon jetzt einfach funktioniert (April 2026), is an impact assessment of three years of work by the mehrweg.einfach.machen (m.e.m.) implementation alliance. The alliance was founded in December 2022 by WWF Deutschland, Mehrwegverband Deutschland e. V. and ProjectTogether, funded through the partners’ own resources plus support from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). It concluded its work in December 2025.

The second, the policy brief Mehrweg-to-go: Ein Blick in die Zukunft (August 2026), draws the policy conclusions from that body of experience together with a fresh political and economic analysis by the Hamburg-based Ökopol Institut. Both publications share the same technical backbone: Till Zimmermann and Anna Steinhardt of Ökopol.

Read together, the two documents are unusual for their candour. The practice report does not present the alliance’s projects as a success story but rates them in a traffic-light impact matrix – and several of the eleven activities examined receive a “mixed” verdict.

The starting point: a mandate that barely moved the numbers

Germany’s reusable offer obligation (Mehrwegangebotspflicht, MAP) under the Packaging Act (VerpackG) entered into force on 1 January 2023. It was the country’s first concrete, binding national requirement to promote reusable options in food service.

The outcome, according to WWF’s report: the reuse rate rose from 0.7 percent to 1.6 percent between 2022 and 2023. Mathematically that is a doubling. In practice it means 98.4 percent of takeaway service still runs on single-use packaging.

The analysis identifies three causes:

• no sanctions for non-compliance – in most places, enforcement simply does not happen;
• no consumer demand – the reusable option exists but is neither visible nor convenient;
• statutory exemptions – the MAP focuses on single-use plastics, while paper and cardboard packaging is excluded for takeaway food, even though these account for a large share of single-use containers.

A fourth, structural cause forms the central thesis of the policy brief: reusable systems are currently not cost-competitive, and because of missing economies of scale they will not become so on their own.

The economics: 5 cents versus a subscription fee

Ökopol’s calculation for the hot beverage market makes the point clearly. Germany sells an estimated 1.1 to 1.2 billion hot drinks per year for takeaway in single-use cups (based on Kauertz et al. 2019), generating 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes of waste. Switching that entire volume to reusable cups – assuming ten rotations per cup – would leave 3,500 to 6,300 tonnes. Waste falls to roughly a third, but does not disappear: reusable containers also wear out.

The cost side is more delicate. Food service operators buy single-use cups in bulk at typically 5 to 7 cents apiece (in some cases low double-digit cents). Reusable system providers offer two pricing models:

• subscription models: a fixed monthly fee, independent of how many containers are actually used;
• pay-per-use models: a charge per issued cup, often combined with a minimum turnover requirement.

According to Ökopol, the subscription model becomes worthwhile above roughly 300 cups per month. Below that threshold, the cost per issue rises steeply – and the same is true of pay-per-use models, there because of the minimum turnover.

The two models also carry different risk profiles. Pay-per-use keeps exposure predictable thanks to low initial costs, but above a certain reuse share it offers no further economic incentive to increase reuse. Subscription models work the other way round: a higher entry risk, but every additional issue lowers the unit cost.

Examining bakeries in a northern German city, Ökopol showed what actually determines container cost per issue: size and reuse share together. Bakeries selling more than 1,200 hot drinks a week while operating at a 50–100 percent reuse share are the ones whose container costs approach those of single-use cups. For a smaller outlet running at the typical average reuse share of 7 percent, the figure is an order of magnitude higher.

This is the policy brief’s key economic claim: reusable systems only become economical above a certain operating scale, which means the market will not get there by itself. Without active policy intervention, it stalls.

The analysis flags a second distortion as well. Cities and municipalities currently bear the costs of the single-use system without complaint, through tax-funded street cleaning and the provision of waste management infrastructure. The cheapness of single-use packaging rests in part on the fact that market actors do not pay all of its costs.

The legal framework: SUPD, VerpackG, PPWR

In 2025 an EU layer was added above the German rules. Article 33(1) of the PPWR – Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste – requires that by 12 February 2028, final distributors operating in the hospitality sector who supply hot or cold drinks or ready-prepared food in takeaway packaging must give consumers the option of receiving the product in reusable packaging within a reuse system.

Article 43(1) additionally sets binding, cross-sectoral waste prevention targets for Member States. Against the 2018 baseline, packaging waste must be reduced by

• at least 5 percent by 2030,
• at least 10 percent by 2035,
• at least 15 percent by 2040.

This is where the German experience acquires European significance. Article 33 essentially extends across the EU the same offer obligation that has applied in Germany since 2023 – the one that produced a 1.6 percent reuse rate. If Member States limit themselves to transposition, there is little reason to expect a better European result than the German one.

What the pilot projects show

The most valuable part of the impact assessment is where the alliance measures its own pilots. Some key findings:

Nudging at the counter (“Mehrweg: Erste Wahl”). Eight food service chains – including Burger King, IKEA, Valora (BackWerk, Back-Factory, Ditsch), Haferkater, Zeit für Brot and Food Trucks United – tested behavioural interventions across more than 800 stores between September and December 2023. The strongest tools proved to be “reuse as the default” (the drink is pre-programmed at the till to be served in a reusable cup) and staff competitions.

The results, however, vary sharply. In twelve IKEA bistros the reuse share rose from 12 to 36 percent, and in individual bistros from 5 to 80 percent – tripling the chain average. Burger King’s 760 restaurants saved 49,000 single-use cups in total, with individual outlets raising their share 2.5-fold, yet the effect at chain level remained small. At Zeit für Brot bakeries the number of reusable cups issued rose by 30 percent, while the chain-wide reuse share moved by just one percentage point.

The lesson: nudging works impressively in individual outlets but does not spread to the network as a whole on its own. Lasting effects require embedding in corporate strategy and support from further measures.

Large events: the Tempelhof case. In August 2024, at Die Ärzte’s Berlin concert series – three days, 150,000 visitors – the aim was to serve all food and drink exclusively in reusable containers. In practice the reuse share reached around 80 percent, well above the industry norm for comparable events according to the organisers. A total of 57,393 reusable items (plates, bowls, cutlery) were issued, of which close to 90 percent came back undamaged. Estimated waste savings: around 548 kilograms.

The visitor response is the project’s most persuasive result. Of 547 people surveyed, 89 percent approved of food being served exclusively in reusable containers, 90 percent agreed that fully reusable service at large events helps reduce single-use waste, and 85 percent said service was no slower than with single-use tableware. That last point matters, because slower service is one of the most common objections raised by caterers.

Running events. At the 2023 Berlin Marathon, 90,000 cups were rented; 97.1 percent reached the washing facility and 79,791 cups were reused – an 88.7 percent reuse rate. Waste avoided: 379.26 kilograms. At the 2024 half marathon, only 5 percent of CUNA’s 85,000 cups were lost or damaged beyond use, saving 476 kilograms of waste.

What did not work. In the “Mehrweg am Empfang” project, seven companies accepted returns of employees’ reusable containers at their reception desks over four weeks. The result: roughly 70 containers returned. Beforehand, 84 percent of respondents had said they would choose reusable if they could return the container at work – and then barely used the option. It is the best available reminder that stated intention and actual behaviour diverge.

The communications side is similarly sobering. By WWF’s own assessment, the #MehrMehrweg campaign fell short of what the organisation typically achieves with nature and species conservation campaigns. The accompanying survey of 12,500 people did, however, deliver an important diagnosis: 81 percent of respondents said they rarely noticed reusable offers, and 43.2 percent cited the lack of return options as a barrier.

Where the biggest gains lie: opportunities for wider rollout

The report’s closing chapter singles out three activities as worth pursuing further: large events, running events, and municipal professional cooperation.

The festival calculation is striking. At a smaller three-day festival where visitors consume an average of five meals each, fully reusable service (assuming 10 percent container loss) saves 752.5 kilograms of waste compared with the single-use alternative. At a large festival with 70,000 visitors this rises to 5,267.5 kilograms. Germany hosted 1,764 festivals in 2025, of which roughly 17 percent – around 300 events – drew 10,000 or more attendees. If only those 300 festivals switched entirely to reusable tableware, the saving would amount to some 225,750 kilograms of waste.

Running events follow the same logic: around 999 kilograms could be avoided at the Generali Berlin Half Marathon, some 1,450 kilograms at the Generali Köln Marathon (37,000 participants), and around 1,168 kilograms at the ADAC Marathon Hannover (29,800 participants). WWF’s framing lands well: nothing becomes waste faster than a disposable water cup at a marathon.

These events are ideal precisely because they are closed systems. Visitors depend on what is available on site, there is no way to opt out, and returning a container takes minimal effort. That produces high return rates and low losses. The report also argues for a systemic effect: a positive user experience normalises reusable service and shifts expectations towards future events.

The five core demands

The policy brief sets out five policy demands:

1. Financing the packaging transition. The draft German VerpackDG still envisaged a dedicated reduction and prevention body with a binding financing agreement for reusable systems. The final text retained only a broadly worded obligation to take waste prevention measures (§ 59). WWF argues this should at least be used strategically, and that the next amendment must give a substantive answer to the financing question.
2. Mandatory reuse at events. For both beverages and food, at large events and running events alike.
3. Reuse as the default, single-use on request only. Via an explicit opt-out rule or a point-of-sale information requirement.
4. Securing enforcement of existing law. Municipalities lack the staff and budget for inspections, so the federal government should provide earmarked funding. The report’s phrasing is concise: law without enforcement has no effect.
5. Using and strengthening municipal room for manoeuvre. By-laws, event permit conditions, funding programmes, local packaging taxes – complemented by examining a nationally uniform packaging tax whose revenue would flow entirely to municipalities.

Municipalities as the key actors

The policy brief argues at length that in the German system municipalities hold the most effective instruments: they act simultaneously as permitting authority, rule-maker and inspectorate. They can introduce single-use bans, reuse requirements, minimum standards for tableware and cutlery, and even mandate the use of specific systems. For events on public land – markets, Christmas markets, funfairs – they can write reuse requirements into permit conditions and public tenders.

The most powerful instrument, however, is the local packaging tax, which fundamentally alters the cost relationship between single-use and reusable. Konstanz introduced one in January 2025, and according to the city’s own reporting the effect on public-space waste volumes is already measurable.

The analysis is also critical, though. While several major cities – Kiel, Leipzig, Munich – have incorporated reuse promotion into their zero waste concepts, those documents contain few clear, quantified targets and tend to remain vague.

Reading it from Hungary: what is worth adopting?

The German situation cannot be copied wholesale, but several points translate directly.

The EU deadline binds us too. The obligation under Article 33(1) PPWR becomes directly applicable in Hungary from 12 February 2028. The German experience shows that introducing an offer obligation alone – without inspection, incentives or funding – produces movement measured in fractions of a percentage point. If Hungary does no more than meet the statutory minimum, the outcome is predictable.

Events are the best entry point. The German data is unambiguous: closed-system, high-attendance events deliver the highest return rates, the least resistance, and the lowest organisational effort per kilogram of waste avoided. In a Hungarian context that means festivals, municipal events, Christmas markets and mass participation sport – settings where a single decision by the municipality or organiser can convert an entire venue.

The scale question is sharper here. Ökopol’s calculation shows reusable systems only approach single-use cost levels at substantial volumes. Average outlet size and turnover in Hungarian food service are lower than in Germany, which suggests the threshold will be harder to reach here – unless shared system-provider and washing capacity emerges across multiple outlets.

The institutional setup differs, though. The German model centres on municipal room for manoeuvre: local by-laws, local taxes, local permitting. Hungarian waste management is considerably more centralised under the concession model, and the municipal regulatory and financing toolkit is correspondingly narrower. What transfers most directly from the German recipe is therefore the event permitting and public procurement conditions framework, along with converting municipally organised events. Instruments of the packaging-tax type, which rewrite cost relationships, would require decisions at national level.

The regional economic argument applies here as well. According to the policy brief, single-use packaging is typically manufactured abroad, whereas the services in a reusable system – washing and reprocessing, logistics between food service, retail and return points, maintenance of return infrastructure, and the digital services of tracking and till integration – arise locally. The report is honest enough to add that no studies on regional employment effects are yet available, so this remains a logical rather than an empirical argument.

Methodological limits – acknowledged in the report itself

The document’s value is enhanced by its openness about its own limits. The impact assessment explicitly states that it was able to examine outputs and outcomes, but can make no claims about societal impact. Quantitative data collection was missing for many projects, pushing qualitative assessment to the fore.

A significant share of the waste-saving figures are modelled estimates, not measurements. For the Tempelhof project, no data was available on the composition and weight of the containers used, so another provider’s product data was taken as the basis. The extrapolations for festivals and running events rest similarly on assumptions about container weights, return rates and consumption volumes. These sensitivity parameters move the result by orders of magnitude: for the marathon calculation, the authors specifically note that the purpose-developed CUNA cup is comparatively light, and that separate calculations would be needed for other manufacturers’ cups.

None of this weakens the analysis’s central claims, but it does mean the specific kilogram figures should be read as indications of magnitude rather than precise metrics.

Conclusion

The German lesson condenses into three sentences. First: an offer obligation is necessary but nowhere near sufficient – without inspection and sanctions, the law stays on paper. Second: the cost advantage of reusable systems only materialises at volume, which makes financing the transition a precondition for the system to function rather than an optional extra. Third: the fastest and most reliable results come from closed-system events, where a single organiser’s decision displaces tens of thousands of single-use containers.

From a Hungarian perspective, the February 2028 PPWR deadline is not distant. Converting the events sector, building system-provider and washing capacity, and creating regulatory inspection capacity are tasks whose lead times are measured in years. Germany has just demonstrated what happens when those steps are taken after the obligation enters into force rather than before.

Sources:

• WWF Deutschland (2026): Mehrweg-to-go: Ein Blick in die Zukunft. Policy Brief. Authors: Laura Griestop, Eva Badem, Vanessa Esslinger (WWF Deutschland), Till Zimmermann, Anna Steinhardt (Ökopol). Berlin, August 2026.
• WWF Deutschland (2026): Kreislaufwirtschaft in der Praxis: Wo Mehrweg schon jetzt einfach funktioniert. Erkenntnisse aus 3 Jahren mehrweg.einfach.machen. Authors: Till Zimmermann, Anna Steinhardt (Ökopol). Berlin, April 2026.
• Regulation (EU) 2025/40 of the European Parliament and of the Council on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR)
• Directive (EU) 2019/904 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment (SUPD)
• Further sources cited in the reports: Kauertz et al. (2019, 2024), Klöpper et al. (2024), Schüler et al. (2023), Kurth et al. (2025), Stadt Konstanz (2025), Sénat français (2023)