The sentence hardly anyone reads
Every summer a report with an unwieldy title appears: “Bundesweite Erhebung von Daten zum Verbrauch von Getränken in Mehrweggetränkeverpackungen” (nationwide survey of data on the consumption of beverages in reusable beverage packaging). It is commissioned by the Umweltbundesamt (the German Environment Agency) and produced by GVM in Mainz. This report is the source of the figures with which the reusable-packaging argument is fought out in Germany – including the 70 per cent target against which politics measures the beverage industry.
The report for the reference year 2024 gives a reusable share across all beverages of 34.5 % and for the beer segment 78.1 %. Both figures are cleanly collected. But both refer to a section of the market that is defined in the chapter “Definitions”.
“Fill sizes above 10 litres, mostly special packaging variants such as post-mix and premix, gallon containers for water dispensers and keg goods, remain unconsidered as in the earlier studies, since they are mainly used in the commercial sector.”
UBA TEXTE 100/2026, p. 14, Definitions sectionKeg goods. That is, the 20-, 30- and 50-litre keg. The container that achieves by far the highest number of trips of all beverage packaging in Germany does not appear in the most important German reusable-packaging statistics.
The measuring range of the reusable quota
What the report counts ends at ten litres. To the right of that lies the keg.
The association says it itself – only more quietly
One might assume the omission has gone unnoticed. It has not. In its statement on the draft EU Packaging Regulation, the Deutscher Brauer-Bund (German Brewers’ Association) writes:
“According to the Umweltbundesamt, the share of beer filled into reusable packaging has recently been stable at 79 per cent, even without draught beer.”
Deutscher Brauer-Bund, statement on the PPWR proposal, 15.03.2023, p. 2“Even without draught beer”. The clause is technically entirely correct and it is used to strengthen the argument: even without the keg we are already at 79 per cent. Only the association does not draw the obvious conclusion from it. If the container with the highest number of trips drops out of the calculation and the quota is still 78 to 80 per cent, then the actual reusable share for beer is above the published figure. By how much, nobody says.
The most-quoted German reusable figure for beer is at its core a bottle quota.That does not make it wrong. It simply answers a different question from the one most of those who quote it assume.
Why the boundary makes methodological sense
The report makes no mistake. It measures the consumption of beverages by end consumers, and it does so through retail panels and household panels. A 50-litre keg is not bought by a household. It goes to a pub, a beverage wholesaler or an event organiser, and what runs from it into the glasses cannot be cleanly assigned to a packaging size with the instruments of this survey. The reason given in the report – “since they are mainly used in the commercial sector” – is precisely that.
The problem only arises one level later: the figure is used on without this restriction. In press releases, in position papers, in political targets. And there it then stands as “the reusable share for beer”, not as “the reusable share for beer in fill sizes up to ten litres”.
What the survey covers
- Reusable bottle 0.33 and 0.5 l including crate
- Single-use bottle and can
- Party keg 5 l
- all other fill sizes up to 10 l
What it expressly does not cover
- Keg 20, 30 and 50 l
- Post-mix and pre-mix
- Gallon containers for water dispensers
- everything else above 10 l
What that means in practice
Your real reusable performance is better than any official statistic shows. Anyone who wants to prove that in their own sustainability communication has to calculate it themselves – hectolitres filled per container type, trips per keg, return rate. There is no official figure to fall back on.
The 70 per cent reusable target is measured against an indicator in which the most efficient reusable system in the industry does not appear. Measures that promote draught beer sales improve the environmental balance without visibly affecting whether the target is met. That is a steering problem, not an arithmetic error.
The PPWR takes a different route. It regulates transport packaging in its own right and expressly names “pails, drums and canisters of any size or material”. Where the German consumption statistics leave the keg out, European law addresses it directly. What follows from that is in the article on the PPWR.
A note on our own interest
We refurbish kegs. An article showing that the keg is left out of the statistics is useful to us. That does not change the correctness of the sentences quoted, but it belongs in the open. All three quotations in this text are verbatim and given with their source, so that everyone can look them up themselves.
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