Over half a billion PET bottles, cans and glass bottles have been recovered so far under Romania’s deposit-refund system RetuRo, which confirms that we are reaching our targets and indicators, Minister of the Environment, Waterways and Forestry Mircea Fechet told a news briefing on Thursday at the end of a government meeting.

„This month we inaugurated the fourth RetuRo centre in Otopeni, near Bucharest, joining the other three opened in Cluj, Timis and Brasov. We will soon open the first such centre in Moldavia and it will be in Bacau. Such collection and sorting centres entail very large investment and hundreds of jobs. (…) In December we had 30,000 PET bottles, glass bottles and aluminium cans collected; in January there were two million and – while some worry about the viability of the deposit-refund system – I can say that so far we have recovered more than half a billion PET bottles, cans and glass bottles under the deposit-refund system. This month we estimate to exceed the threshold of 200 million, which confirms that DRS is on the trajectory we have set, that we are reaching our targets and indicators – and I think it can already be seen with the naked eye: there are fewer and fewer PET bottles thrown on the side of the road, in river beds, in nature, in forests or other places,” said Fechet.

He added that Romania no longer needs to import PET bottles, provided that the DRS provides enough raw material.

„In 2020, when I visited such a recycling plant, the largest in Southeastern Europe, in Buzau County, I noticed on the platform of that large factory PET bales from Australia, Germany, the UK, almost all over the world, and today we no longer have to import. The DRS is providing enough raw material. I am glad to see that we not only make Romania cleaner, but we also contribute to the trade balance of the Romanian state.”

AGERPRES