Romanian Govt Plans To Increase Waste Recycling Rate

Environment Minister Laszlo Borbely said Tuesday, in a seminar on waste management, that Romania recycles only 1% of the waste it produces; the rest is stored in landfills. The minister’s statement is based on internal statistics and on a 2008 study which placed Romania and Bulgaria at the bottom of the EU ranking by this criterion.

Romania has shut down 137 landfills and a further 100 need to be closed, said the minister, reminding that local authorities must implement the Integrated Waste Management System in every county by 2015. The Environment Ministry has signed contracts for waste management worth over EUR800 million in the last two months, said Borbely.

Ionut Georgescu, head of the ministry’s Waste and Dangerous Substance Management Department, said the 50% recycling target set for 2020 is „impossible to reach.” He supports creating a „realistic” plan, with a goal of 2030, adding that a bill „revolutionizing” waste management in Romania has already been sent to the Parliament.

Georgescu explained that, at the moment, storing waste is „much cheaper” than recycling, so sanitation managers are more tempted to use it. Because of this, the Government is considering introducing a landfill storage fee.

This fee could be covered in two ways, said Georgescu: „either mayors bear the risk and transfer it directly to the citizens – hard to believe, given the electoral interest – or they and sanitation companies run projects to encourage selective collection and use the waste without storing it.”

The storage fee would be increased gradually so that it would ultimately stop being economically feasible, thus encouraging recycling, he said.

Silvian Ionescu, commissioner general with the National Environment Guard, said the fee would also prevent waste from other EU member states from being stored in Romania.

Only 1% of the 382 kg of waste produced in 2008 by every Romanian living in a large city was recycled; the rest was stored, temporarily or permanently, in landfills, according to a Eurostat study. The only country with a lower recycling rate was Bulgaria, where the entire quantity of municipal waste was taken to landfills.

The study also says that every person living in large EU cities produced 524 kg of waste in 2008, of which 40% went to landfills, 20% was incinerated, 23% was recycled and 17% was destroyed through decomposition.