SGR - ready for November 30 release

The launch of the Packaging Guarantee-Return System, on November 30, will position Romania in a position of European leadership in environmental protection and packaging management, said Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, yesterday, on the occasion of the inauguration by the Returo company of the first regional center for the collection of packaging in Bonţida, Cluj county.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said: "I am part of a generation in which we were taught not to waste the resources we had at our disposal. I remember how as a child we bought all the soccer balls with the money collected on the bottles that all the kids in the block collected. But beyond these small benefits, I think the most important thing was that we all adhered, consciously or not, to those principles related to responsibility and sustainability towards the environment. I think the time has come to return to these sound principles. I am glad to be able to participate in the inauguration of the first regional packaging collection center of the company Returo SA, in Bonţida, Cluj county. It is an important event because in three days the Return Guarantee System will be launched in Romania. That's why I think today we're talking about a zero moment. This first regional collection center officially marks the start of the nationwide program. I think it is a historic moment that records the beginning of Romania's most ambitious circular economy project and the strength of the first functional public-private partnership. The government together with the private sector managed to launch perhaps the most important country project in this field in the last 30 years. (...) The launch of SGR will position Romania in a position of European leadership in environmental protection and packaging management. The SGR in our country will be the second largest such system in Europe, after Germany, from the perspective of the number of packages processed. At the same time, we represent a global first: the largest integrated system of this kind". According to the Head of the Government, starting from November 30, Romanian citizens will join the more than 350 million citizens in the world who live in a country where there is a guarantee-return system. He specified that at this moment in the European Union there are 13 countries that have implemented SGR, a system that serves a population of almost 145 million people. In just three days, with the accession of Romania, there will be more than 163 million European citizens more careful with the environment in which they live, the head of the Government also said.

Marcel Ciolacu mentioned: "These collection centers will have a direct economic impact: the creation of more than 600 jobs by the end of next year and the stimulation of similar investments in transport and recycling".

For his part, Mircea Fechet, the Minister of the Environment, Waters and Forests, said that we need these collection and counting centers because the citizen's mission ends as soon as he inserts the packaging into the slot of the collection machine.

Mircea Fechet stated: "From that moment, a race against the clock begins so that the more than 7 billion aluminum bottles, blankets or cans end up where they belong: in the recycling factories where they generate jobs and investments. SGR is probably the first successful public-private partnership. The Romanian state has done its duty as far as it is concerned and the private party has done its duty, and the beneficiary of the SGR is the Romanian citizen. There are only three days until SGR starts".

The Minister of the Environment told the small rural traders who are worried about how the SGR will work to be optimistic because "together we will transform Romania from the country of storage to the country of recycling".

With all the optimism of the two officials, they did not offer explanations in relation to the real concerns of small retailers and importers of drinks, the latter especially in terms of the stocks that must be exhausted by next year, stocks made on the basis of contracts prior to the entry into force of SGR. Especially since, in the case of these importers, it is about expensive drinks, which are harder to sell, sales that do not quickly lead to the exhaustion of existing stocks as required by the guarantee-return system.

Moreover, among the small retailers, it is not known whether all of them have storage space for the packaging collected from end users, spaces that are permanently monitored, or whether they have entered into a partnership with the administrative-territorial unit within the radius of which they carry out their commercial activity , partnership regarding the storage and collection of recyclable packaging.

According to the initial data, more than 80,000 small and large companies are registered in the SGR, regarding the collection of recyclable packaging. The SGR will be implemented starting from November 30, 2023, and from that moment Romanians will pay a guarantee of 50 money when they buy a bottled drink (water, soft drinks, beer, cider, wine, soft drinks spirits) from a merchant. Later, after emptying the packaging, the consumer will have to bring it to one of the return points organized by the merchants and will receive back, on the spot, the amount of the guarantee initially paid, without being conditioned to the presentation of the tax receipt.

The company in charge of SGR, RetuRO Sistem Garanţie Returnare SA, operates on the "not for profit" principle, which means that any profit made from the collection of beverage packaging will be reinvested, exclusively, in the development of SGR. The company was created by a consortium of three private shareholders: the Association of Romanian Brewers for the Environment (30%), the Association of Soft Drink Producers for Sustainability (30%) and the Association of Retailers for the Environment (20%) and a public shareholder, the Romanian state, through the central environmental authority, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests (20%).