More innovation needed to bridge the packaging-recycling gap in Romania

European Aluminium’s packaging group chairman Mr Raphael Thevenin (Constellium) calls upon local authorities and waste management operators to invest in innovative packaging collection and recycling systems, on the occasion of the annual packaging recycling seminar of European Aluminium in Bucharest. Romania, like some other European countries, has to catch up with the more advanced EU Member States.

Towards the end of this year, the European Commission will publish a revised proposal for a ‘Circular Economy’, with more ambitious recycling and recovery targets. European Aluminium supports the proposal but stresses the need for realistic targets which take into account the differences between collection infrastructures in Member States. Countries with less advanced recycling infrastructures, such as Romania, need more time and should invest directly in the most advanced collection and sorting technologies. Recyclable waste such as used aluminium packaging should no longer end up in landfills. The valuable metal should be made available to European aluminium recycling businesses to produce new, valuable end-use products”, Thevenin said.

European Aluminium’s Packaging Group organizes its annual recycling seminar this year in Bucharest, Romania, in close cooperation with Aluminium Can Recycling Romania (ALUCRO). Delegates will discuss the latest collection and sorting technologies and pay a visit to an innovative waste sorting plant belonging to the Romanian Green Group. Here the input material comes from modern voluntary take back units installed in the carparks of large supermarkets. In return for a small fee Romanian citizens can return valuable waste items such as light bulbs and aluminium beverage cans to these automated machines. With some extra treatment the pre-sorted waste fractions can then easily be recycled. Similar machines have been installed in Hungary and in Poland.

European Aluminium supports such initiatives but underlines that these take back machines cannot solve the whole waste problem. Multi-material collection systems are still needed but they should become more competitive and improve their performances.