Business Forum • 1 October, 2024 at 4:32 PM
RetuRO, the administrator of the Deposit Return System, the largest circular economy project in Romania, inaugurated today in Ariceștii Rahtivani, Prahova County, the seventh regional center for counting and sorting DRS packaging. The opening of the new center creates 120 green jobs locally.
The new RetuRO center is located within the Eli Park industrial park and is equipped with state-of-the-art technology. It is capable of efficiently sorting and counting all types of DRS packaging. With a surface area of approximately 6,000 square meters, the center in Prahova County has an annual counting capacity of approximately 280 million DRS packaging and a sorting and processing capacity by material type (PET, metal, glass) of more than 820 million DRS packaging.
"It's been ten months since the launch of the Deposit Return System in Romania, during which time this circular economy project has succeeded in changing consumer attitudes and behaviour regarding the management of beverage packaging. Today, the system is well known by the citizens, having collected more than 2 billion DRS containers since its launch in Romania. At the same time, our efforts to improve and streamline the DRS continue, and the opening of the regional center in Prahova is an important step in this direction. We will continue to expand our infrastructure with three more centers to be inaugurated in the coming months in Suceava, Bihor and Constanța, ensuring the efficient processing of the growing volume of packaging returned nationwide", says Gemma Webb, CEO and Chairman of the RetuRO Board of Directors.
Ten months ago, Romania joined the European countries that have implemented a Deposit Return System, developing a unique model in terms of complexity and geographical coverage. Progress has been exponential, with results increasing considerably from one month to the next. In August this year, Romanians returned 533 million DRS containers, representing almost 80% of all DRS packaging put on the market in the month.
Since the launch of the scheme and until the end of August, more than 104,000 tons of materials have been directed by RetuRO to recyclers, ensuring the return of materials to the market, thus enabling the production of new packaging, according to the bottle-to-bottle principle.
The Deposit Return System lays the foundations for a circular economy in Romania. It is emerging as a model of best practice for other countries planning to introduce such a system.
RetuRO Return Guarantee System S.A. is a company operating on a not-for-profit basis – which means that any profit made by the company from the collection of beverage containers will be reinvested, exclusively, in the development of DRS. The company was created by a consortium of three private shareholders: the Brewers of Romania Association for the Environment (30%), the Association of Soft Drinks Producers for Sustainability (30%) and the Association of Retailers for the Environment (20%) and a public shareholder, the Romanian state, through the central environmental authority, the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests (20%).
RetuRO, the DRS administrator, operates with exclusively private financing and has the role of ensuring transparency on the quantities of beverage containers placed on the market and returned by consumers, contributing to the sustainable development of Romania, through responsible management of containers waste, in order to achieve the recycling targets imposed on Romania by the European Union.