Over 340 million packages were returned in January through the Deposit-Return System, and approximately 17,800 tons of PETs, bottles and aluminium cans have already reached recycling plants, according to Environment Minister Mircea Fechet.

“Good start for DRS in its second year of operation. The system added 78 new automatic collection machines (RVMs) to stores, very good for the first month of the year.

After a record-breaking year, ending with a total of 3.36 billion packages returned, an enviable performance among European countries, the Deposit-Return System has to take a decisive step in 2025: to develop at the community level,” said Fechet.

“We mobilized in 2024 to make the country cleaner, and this year we have every reason to remain just as ambitious, because together we have achieved what has not been done in Romania in 30 years:

– the first billion packages returned through the SGR came half a year after the launch of the program, in August

– the second and third billion came only a month apart, in October and November

– we had collection rates of over 80% achieved in consecutive months, more precisely in the autumn months, which brought a good harvest for the SGR

– the national network of automatic collection points counts thousands of active and functional points, and from one month to the next several hundred new collection devices (RVMs) have been and continue to be installed

– and the most important thing, in my opinion: we have managed to create thousands of new green jobs, in a new industry with a lot of potential, the recycling industry.”