Consumers will be able to return PET, glass and metal packaging, starting from November 30, 2023, when the Deposit – Return system will start operating in Romania, according to the latest amendments and additions to HG No. 1074/2021. When buying a drink from the following categories: water, soft drinks, beer, wine, spirits from a merchant, consumers will pay a guarantee of 0.50 RON which will be recovered once the packaging is returned.

The administration of the implementation of the guarantee-return system is carried out by RetuRO Sistem Garanție Returnare S.A., which was appointed in this regard on August 24, 2022. The company began to take the first steps for the operational implementation of the system in Romania, being in the finalization stage of the processes administrative, to recruit key administrative personnel, but also to obtain the funding necessary to implement SGR at the national level.

RetuRO will work with manufacturers and traders to help them understand their obligations, providing support to prepare for the launch of the SGR. In the coming period, the company will come with more information to manufacturers and traders, with the steps they need to follow to register in the system.

“In the next period, an entire infrastructure must be built behind the system to allow the collection of packaging returned by consumers to merchants, their counting, compaction, sending to recycling, activities that will be carried out in the sorting and counting centers that we are going to build within RetuRO,” said Julia Leferman (photo), General Manager of the Association of Romanian Brewers, a shareholder association of the RetuRO company.

During the transition period, there will be packaging with and without the SGR label on store shelves. Starting from the date of entry into operation of the SGR, products not registered with the SGR will no longer be able to be introduced on the market, except for the products that are in the stock of manufacturers and traders, which can be sold until December 31, 2024.

RetuRO Sistem Garantie Returnare S.A. was created by a consortium of three private shareholders: the Association of Soft Drink Manufacturers for Sustainability, the Association of Romanian Brewers for the Environment and the Association of Retailers for the Environment, and a public shareholder, the Romanian state, through the central environmental authority.