Europe’s first large-scale pilot project dedicated to the separate collection of beverage and dairy cartons, launched by Tetra Pak and Mega Image in partnership with Maspex, TOMRA, and Brai Cata, has surpassed the milestone of one million cartons collected in Romania in less than eight months. Following the project’s strong performance and the positive response from consumers, the collection period in Bucharest and Ilfov will be extended by an additional three months, until October 23, 2026.

Between November 21, 2025, and July 14, 2026, Romanians returned more than one million beverage and dairy cartons through 16 reverse vending machines (RVMs) located in 15 Mega Image stores across Bucharest, Ilfov, and Brașov. The collected volume exceeds 35 tonnes of material destined for recycling—the equivalent of approximately three fully loaded trucks.

If placed end to end, the collected cartons would stretch for more than 206 kilometres—roughly the length of 2,000 football pitches lined up one after another, or enough to cover the distance between Bucharest and Brașov, the two main cities participating in the pilot.

The results demonstrate growing consumer engagement with carton collection. On average, more than 4,300 cartons were returned every day across just 15 collection points, while each RVM transaction included an average of 10 cartons. This suggests that an increasing number of consumers are collecting cartons at home and returning them in larger quantities, turning separate collection into a regular sustainability habit.

Nearly 73% of all cartons were collected in Bucharest and Ilfov, while 27% came from Brașov. Following the expansion and optimisation of the collection network in April, the average monthly collection volume increased almost fourfold, from around 54,000 to more than 205,000 cartons per month. During the last three full months alone, more than 615,000 cartons were collected, representing nearly 60% of the project’s original one-million-carton target announced at launch.

“The ‘You Win, Nature Breathes’ pilot project gives us the opportunity to test, for the first time at this scale in Europe, an alternative collection model for beverage and dairy cartons. From the outset, we set ourselves an ambitious goal—to collect one million cartons—and surpassing that milestone before the end of the project’s initial phase confirms that when consumers have access to convenient infrastructure and a simple return mechanism, they respond positively and quickly adopt new recycling habits. In response to the strong consumer interest and feedback, we have decided to extend the project in Bucharest and Ilfov until October 23, 2026. Starting August 1, the collection network will include 11 RVMs located in 10 Mega Image stores in Bucharest and Ilfov, while the Brașov machines will remain available until July 31,” said Ștefan Urziceanu, Sustainability Manager at Tetra Pak for Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Moldova.

The best-performing collection point is the Mega Image Piața Sudului store in Bucharest, where nearly 290,000 cartons have been returned—almost 28% of the project’s total collected volume. It is followed by Mega Image Brașov 1034 and Mega Image Titulescu 4 in Bucharest. Together, these three locations accounted for approximately 44% of all returned cartons, highlighting the effectiveness of placing collection infrastructure in high-traffic retail locations.

The most frequently returned product category was 1-litre milk cartons.

“A retailer is more than a place where people shop—it is also a place where consumers can adopt new habits with a positive impact. Through this project, we have seen how important it is to provide customers with simple, convenient solutions that are available where they already shop. Being able to adapt and expand the collection network based on consumer behaviour has contributed significantly to the project’s success and demonstrates that initiatives like this have real potential when built on collaboration and designed around people’s everyday needs,” said Emanuel Parvulescu, Head of Environment at Mega Image.