The guarantee-return system for plastic packaging, PETs and plastic bottles has provided a source of income for thousands of Romanians. In Romania, between 5,000 and 6,000 people earn daily from recycling these packages.
More than 5,000 Romanians have made a job of recycling packaging – Photo Archive
“There would be between 5,000 and 6,000 Romanians who today put bread on the table thanks to the warranty-return system. Look for bottles around the city, through street bins. Bottles that would normally have ended up in landfill. A citizen sent me a photo yesterday with a report because he was fined by the Local Police for taking a PET out of a bin“, the Minister of the Environment Mircea Fechet sent
However, some of the people who collect Pets vandalize the bins. So far, the Local Police has issued 30 fines in sector 3, totaling nearly 7,000 lei.
“I think it is wrong to fine a person who takes the PET from a trash can, because that PET would have ended up in the landfill. In the situation where he puts it in an RVM, in an automatic machine, in addition to the fact that he earns 50 money, we make sure that that PET ends up in a recycling plant. The largest PET processor in Romania and South-Eastern Europe told me that for the first time in the history of the company, and they were established immediately after the Revolution, they gave up importing PET from other countries, for me it’s news amazing“, explained Mircea Fechet, last week.
But, “those who vandalize the separate collection points, those igloos, and make a mess around, those people of course must be fined and I did not mean them”specified the Minister of the Environment, after his statement was misunderstood.
Earnings of hundreds of lei per day
Since the beginning of the warranty-return program, more than 850 million packages have been collected. Statistics show that PET recycling through Returo has increased significantly, reaching a monthly recycling rate of around 50%. This growth is fueled by people collecting wrappers for extra income, many of whom rely solely on these earnings to make ends meet.
Some of them declare that they can earn 600 lei a day by collecting non-returned packaging. People collect plastic bottles from garbage cans, from restaurants, shops, from the beach and manage to earn money this way. This means that if they work daily, these people can earn 18,000 lei per month.
A recent study shows that seven out of ten Romanians return all packaging with the SGR symbol, and four out of ten do it to avoid losing the paid guarantee, but 45% of those surveyed are dissatisfied with the way the system works, requesting an increase in the number of points of return to improve its efficiency.
The SGR system currently has 4,000 machines nationwide, and queues often form. Those who want to recover their packaging guarantee complain that they have to wait up to 30 minutes to be able to recycle. Returo representatives said that the system will continue to expand.
