Romania has the chance to act and contribute to achieving European goals, closing the existing gaps, accumulated in long periods of inactivity of political and governmental decision makers, notes the Association of Romanian Businessmen (AOAR), in a press release. AOAR recommends setting up an environmental agenda with clear objectives, in order to be able to produce concrete results quickly and encourage rapid progress for citizens, local authorities and companies.

“We must tax more and more the improper treatment of waste and the failure to recycle it, in order to hope for net benefits: local raw materials, improving the balance of payments, creating jobs, improving the quality of life of citizens, cost savings, attracting European funds for investments in critical infrastructure”, insists AOAR.

Regarding the efficiency of the use of raw resources, some concrete measures are needed to close the performance gaps compared to the rest of the European Union.

Recommendation: close collaboration, in an official framework, at national level, between the Ministry of Environment, local authorities and expert groups, for the dissemination of good practices and effective implementation of new logistics processes, built through informed decisions based on real data capable of ensure effective performance monitoring and rapid correction or stimulation intervention.

Expected result: rapid dissemination of information, multiplication of successful examples, achievement of superior measured performance, at national level. AOAR encourages a structured and segmented approach of environmental issues, starting from easily accessible information and case studies, to expand success models and demonstrate that the legislation can be implemented and can lead to the intended results.

Recommendation of action: segmented approach, meaning collection of food and vegetable waste from retailers, their capitalization in obtaining biogas, fertilizers and anaerobic digestate, with their return to the real economy.

Expected result: rapid creation of efficient, scalable and multipliable, financially self-sustaining systems, models and partnerships.

Recommendation for action: continuous communication platform, open to the social, academic and business partners, coordinated by line ministries for issues in their area of responsibility.

Expected result: a better knowledge of the current status, of the macro-economic tendencies and of the community regulation, which facilitates the assumed commitment and the support from the companies and the citizens in the societal transformation that Romania needs.

Environmental legislation is cumbersome, in permanent and, in some places, contradictory transformation. For uniform implementation, it is necessary to supplement it with rules that ensure rapid and unitary operationalization, as easy as possible for those who need to know and respect it.

Recommendation for action: promote and urgently adopt the technical regulatory norms for the composting law, the guarantee-return system for packaging, the regulations for construction waste, the transparency of authorization and environmental information in general, the definition of the status of “end of waste” for several important categories of waste, the adoption of electrical equipment repair policies (which may be of major importance for equipping children from disadvantaged environments with computers and tablets, refrigerators, televisions, washing machines etc).

Expected result: development of small and medium businesses, increase of the economic value of waste, job creation, increase of the standard of living in poor communities, improvement of local administrative capacity.

In order to implement the recommendations made, AOAR encourages and supports the creation of a working group under the coordination of the Ministry of Environment, structured on specific themes, bringing together representatives of the business environment, local authorities, environmental protection agencies and other institutions with responsibilities in implementing environmental policies.

We must prioritize environmental emergencies and contribute to transforming the opportunities identified at European level into local competitive and societal advantages, by identifying, proposing and carrying out national environmental projects, says AOAR. “Romania has considerable chances to improve the organization of the system of separate collection and recycling of municipal waste, starting from existing examples and tested models. Functional communities, such as Dobroești, Sibiu, Buzău, Oradea, can be starting points for disseminating good practices.”