RetuRO administers the Deposit Return System – Romania’s largest circular economy project. The program was launched to contribute to increasing collective recycling rates, which in our country were of only 14%. RetuRO’s mission was and is one that significantly impacts on the environment we live in a cleaner, greener country.

The Deposit-Return System, Romania’s largest circular economy project, was implemented in November 2023. Since then, RetuRO, together with retailers, authorities and consumers, has contributed to what we see now, almost a year after the launch: cleaner roads, lakes, rivers and seas.

However, the process has been complex and challenging, with the Deposit-Return System being the largest fully integrated system globally and the second largest in Europe after Germany.   During this period, we faced challenges, as to be expected, but we learned from them and managed to surpass the 1 billion threshold of DRS containers returned in just eight months since launch, and to reach six counting and sorting centres opened so far.

How does the Deposit-Return System work

The Deposit-Return System is based on the bottle-to-bottle principle, in which packaging is returned for recycling and reuse to produce new beverage packaging.

So this is how the DRS works: producers place beverages in DRS packaging and sell them to retailers. Consumers purchase these beverages and pay a 0.50 RON deposit for each DRS-packaged beverage. After consumption, consumers can return these packages to designated return points set up by the retailers to get their deposit back. The retailers collect these returned packages and send them to RetuRO’s sorting and counting centres, where the packages are processed – they are counted, sorted by material type, colour (in the case of PET), compacted, and baled (for PET and metal). Subsequently, these packages are sent to recyclers, which transform them into secondary raw materials. These materials are then used to create new packaging. This is why every returned package counts.

A more sustainable future for Romania

Through the circular economy, RetuRO ensures the return of materials to the market and the transparency of the materials’ journey through the entire chain, from the moment they are put on the market to the collection of packaging and recycling. Thus, the program contributes to optimising processes regarding the recovery of used materials.

RetuRO works tirelessly to ensure a more sustainable future for Romania. We aim to optimize the collection process at the national level, which is also our main objective for this year. The latest data shows that Romanians want to recycle and are preoccupied to ensure a more sustainable future for in Romania. In the first 9 months of the program, producers put 4 billion DRS packaging on the market, of which more than 1,8 billion were returned by consumers. 104.755 tons of materials, representing about 80,5% of the collected packaging, have been directed to recycling facilities.