Over 80% of the packaging placed on the market in the first quarter of this year was collected through the Guarantee-Return System, so that garbage in nature will only remain in our memories if the current collection rate is maintained, the minister of environment, waters and forests, Mircea Fechet, stated on Tuesday.

„Looking at last year’s figures, we have over 3 billion packages collected. We are not only talking about PET, aluminum cans or bottles placed in packaging take-back machines (RVM) or taken to a collection point, but we are talking about packages that also reached recycling plants – this is regarding 2024, a transition year, the first year, complicated in many ways. Looking at the first three months of the current year, we can see that they are part of a long list of months with very good, extremely positive collection rates – and when I refer to good collection rates, I mean the fact that over 80% of the packages placed on the market are collected,” the minister said.

He underscored that good packaging collection does not mean that the problem has been solved, given that „PET represents a small part of the waste brought by the waters every spring, but it may mean that Romania is on a good trajectory from this point of view.”

The minister of environment added that RetuRO also means thousands of new jobs, it means investments of tens of millions of euros.

AGERPRES