“The deposit-return scheme will create a circular economy for packaging here in Romania, to make packaging a valuable resource. It will ensure that packaging is collected, recycled, goes back into the system, and reused again. So, it’s a key system in Romania to reduce waste and increase the recycling rates and ensure that we also meet the recycling rates collection and recycling targets set at European level.

Yes, it’s highly complex and highly challenging, but exceptionally rewarding. We will be the second biggest deposit-return scheme in Europe, after Germany. The current deposit-return schemes that are operating are much smaller.

We will have a total volume of 7 billion containers to be collected, sorted, counted, and recycled from across the country. Key to our success is the working together of all the stakeholders,” Gemma Webb, CEO and President of Directorate at RetuRO Deposit-Return System said during Waste Management Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest and Sustainability Today.

“For such a complex system it involves many stakeholders and it’s key to work together. It’s about building our strengths, it’s about embracing change and working together. Every stakeholder has a critical role to play. We have the producers, we have the retailers, we have the importers, we have HoReCa, we have the Government, we have the consumers, the Romanian citizens. Everybody has a key role to play and over the coming months we are engaging with each of those stakeholders to ensure that they have what they need to make the system work beginning at the end of November this year.

Today, we have over 25 people working in RetuRO to bring the system to life.

The next area is financing. To build this system across Romania we need 17 counting and sorting centers: 6 big ones and 11 small ones. For that infrastructure of buildings and ecquipment, we need financing and we are securing financing through a bank loan of over 80 million Euro.

The next area then is the systems, because without systems we can’t do anything. The first system that was put in place was the registration and today we have over 62,000 businesses registered on the system with all of their details. This is over 80 percent of the businesses required. On this basis, with each company now we need to do contracts for the purchase and supply of the materials. In the next two weeks, we will be sending to each producer the contracts, and after that we will send the contracts for the retailers.

Romania has a huge opportunity to set itself as a role model and we can do that. The shareholders of RetuRO are all of the key stakeholders. We have the Government, we have the retailers, and we have the producers.”