“For the first time in the last 30 years, we have started collecting beverage packaging and we have a chance to stop being at the very bottom of Europe for separate collection. RetuRO’s balance sheet looks good from a consumer perspective.

There is still work to be done and we said from the beginning that it won’t be easy, and it won’t be perfect from the start, but we are watching every month the amount of packaging increasing exponentially. We expect in March to reach 3 or maybe even 4 times the number of packages we collected in February, and we are optimistic that the system will look good at the end of the year,” Anca Marinescu, Corporate Affairs and Communications Manager, RetuRO SGR said during Circular Economy Conference organized by Sustainability Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

It is an opportunity to do things together, to learn to work together in Romania, as it really should be in a circular economy. I think we all must get involved in this effort.

Merchants are the backbone of the system and strive every day to ensure the system works as well as possible and to pass on information to consumers.

We must make sure that the DRS system is functional and works perfectly and later we can think about expanding it wherever we think it will be necessary after thorough evaluations.

We know that in other countries where the DRS system has been in place for some time, packaging types are added along the way as soon as there is a market need for them to be introduced.

We have very good premises in Romania for the circular economy and for learning and education in terms of sustainability, in terms of better habits for us and for the environment in which we live.

We need to give both the people and the business sector time to understand the benefits of the deposit-return system.”