The Guarantee-Return system represents the foundation of the circular economy in Romania, and so far Romanian consumers have returned more than 350 million recipients with the SGR symbol, said Gemma Webb, CEO of ReturRO, at the inauguration of the fourth counting and sorting center of the packaging within the Warranty – Return System (SGR), from Otopeni.
“Here, in Bucharest, is the largest Sorting and Counting Center, it has advanced technology and advanced equipment, as happens with all our sorting and counting centers. In this place we will employ more than 150 people, so we are talking about 150 ‘green’ jobs and we will have more than 500 people employed in the whole country. At the Otopeni Center we will process glass, plastic and aluminum. We will count and sort them depending on the material, we will compact them, and then we will sell the materials to the recyclers who will bring them back into the system. So, it is the foundation of the circular economy in Romania and it is a very big step forward for us. In Bucharest, they can be sorted 1 .8 billion packages, and at the national level we have the capacity to count and sort almost three billion packages annually. We see that the system is gradually starting to collect more and more packages and today the four regional centers of Cluj, Brasov, Timisoara and Otopeni. We have an infrastructure that we continue to develop and we will open more centers in Bacău, Dolj and Prahova in the next two months,” said Webb, according to Agerpres.
According to the representative of RetuRo, SGR is a project in full implementation at the national level, with a series of challenges.
“Today, we are in the middle of implementing the system and like all complex projects at the national level, in the first phases of implementation, we are faced with challenges, but each challenge brings us a chance to improve the system. The key to success is the cooperation of all stakeholders and what we have succeeded so far is thanks to this cooperation and what we have managed to do in such a short time is thanks to the producers, the HoReCa traders, the local authorities, the suppliers, the consumers and everyone who works together to bring this project to life. The Romanians responded wonderful for this system, and the quantities of returned packaging are increasing more and more, at an exponential rate. So far, Romanian consumers have returned more than 350 million packages, a fantastic thing. In the last ten days, only from the mountain and from the sea we collected 10 million packages. (…) we anticipated the fact that summer is coming and we prepared for an exponential increase in terms of return rates in the system and we improved logistics efficiency. Part of these measures is the increase in the number of trucks for transport. We have 500 lorries collecting three times what we had at the start of April,” said Gemma Webb.
She added that: “The Warranty-Return System laid the foundation of the circular economy in Romania, and today most of the packaging collected in Romania goes into the system”.
“We collected, processed and sorted very good quality materials and sent them to the recyclers. I can say that the system works every day, we are improving and as I said, every day brings challenges, but every day we make this system be even better and cooperation is the most important in this system”, also said the head of RetuRo.
The SGR packaging counting and sorting center, opened on Tuesday in Otopeni, joins the three already opened, so far, in the counties of Cluj, Timiş and Braşov.