The Deposit-Return System, launched in Romania on December 1, 2023, has proven to be a real success, with RER Group being one of its earliest supporters. According to official reports, in the first three months of this year, the number of DRS (Deposit-Return System) packaging items returned by consumers reached 1.06 billion, while RetuRO delivered 83,000 tonnes of packaging to recyclers.

The recycling rate for collected packaging, as reported by RetuRO for the first quarter of the year and broken down by material type, is 75% for glass, 79% for plastic, and 87% for aluminium, based on the volume of packaging placed on the market.

Given that all these quantities have been diverted from the municipal waste stream, we express our confidence that the authorities will initiate the necessary procedures to amend and update the following legislative acts:

• Government Emergency Ordinance (GEO) no. 92/2021 – amending Annex no. 1 regarding the minimum performance indicators to be included in the delegation contracts for sanitation service management;
• Law no. 249/2015 on packaging and packaging waste;
• GEO no. 196/2005 on the Environmental Fund,

so that the minimum performance indicators included in the delegation contracts for sanitation service management are updated in line with current realities, as their initial establishment was based on different operating conditions, prior to the implementation of the Deposit-Return System.

You can watch the intervention of Mr. Radu Merica, CEO of RER Group, along with the response of Romania’s Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests, Mr. Mircea Fechet, during the Pria Environment Conference here: