Romania to Spend €220 Million on Building Recycling Plants
Romania will spend 220 million euros in subsidies to build 26 waste recycling plants to improve its waste management system and achieve national recycling targets, Balkan green energy news reports.
The Ministry of Environment, Water Resources and Forests has approved the financing for the construction. A €220 million subsidy package from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP or PNRR in Romanian) is expected to cover up to 75% of individual investments.
Waste recycling companies can receive up to €8.4 million for a waste recycling plant project, says Romania's Minister of Environment, Water and Forests Mircea Feshet.
He added that Romania produces a large amount of household waste, while the volume of separate waste collection and recycling rates are low.
Out of the six million tonnes of waste produced annually, only 12-13% is recycled, Feshet said.
Romania ranks 26th out of 27 European Union member states in terms of recycling.
More than 80% of the country's waste goes to landfills.
According to the minister, this is a terrible result compared to the EU average of 20%.
Therefore, the Romanian government expects that the recent introduction of a deposit refund system for beverage packaging, which started in December 2023, will improve the situation.
There are also plans to collect eight billion beverage containers each year, which means that recycling facilities will be needed. It is extremely important to process such resources in Romania and prevent their export, the minister added. According to him, recycling creates jobs and investment.
The programme was presented at the GreenGlass Recycling plant in Popesti Leordeni, a suburb of Bucharest.