Alina Oprea • 6 November, 2023 at 8:27 AM
RetuRO, the administrator of the Guarantee-Return System (SGR) has announced that it was preparing preparing to open its third regional factory in the town of Nicolae Bălcescu, Bacău County. This factory, located in the logistics park ELI Parks Bacău, will carry out counting and sorting operations of beverage packaging collected from merchants. Around 70 green jobs will be created here. At the end of this month, Romania will implement the Guarantee-Return System, an extensive environmental protection and circular economy project for which more than €85 million have already been invested.
Thus, on November 30, 2023, the Guarantee-Return System will be launched, and the factory in Bonţida, Cluj County, will start operating. The factory in Bacău County will be operational until the end of April 2024 and will have 70 employees.
The new factory in Bacau county has an area of 7,800 sqm, and the equipment will be supplied and installed by the Danish company Anker Andersen A/S, the company with which RetuRO signed a contract for the turnkey purchase of equipment for all national centers.
The factory will be equipped with eight industrial machines for sorting PETs and cans and four other equipment for sorting bottles, with a total packaging processing capacity of up to two million PETs and metal containers and approximately one million bottles per day. Also, the factory in Bacău County will be equipped with two optical sorting devices with a capacity of 6 tons/hour and two baling presses with a production capacity of over 130 bales per day.
As the administrator of the Guarantee-Return System, RetuRO will open 17 centers in the next year, where it will transport the beverage packaging collected from approximately 80,000 merchants. They will be counted, sorted, and prepared for transport to recycling companies, to produce recycled raw material, which will be used in the production of new beverage packaging.
"I am happy to note that RetuRO SGR is on schedule with the plan for the progressive opening of counting centers and that it will inaugurate, in Bacău, the first such center in the region of Moldova, where approximately 70 green jobs will be created. The entire logistic process of the Return Guarantee System must take place with as little impact on the environment as possible and with as few CO2 emissions as possible. The progressive opening of the counting centers, in the first months of operation of the SGR, will help to achieve this objective", says Mircea Fechet, Minister of Environment, Water and Forests.
Meanwhile, RetuRO has started preparations for the second factory, located in Giarmata, Timiş county.
In the next period, RetuRO will announce other strategic locations that will be prepared to support the Guarantee-Return System, underlining the company's commitment to network expansion and infrastructure development for a more sustainable future.
"With an ambitious goal to open and operate 17 factories nationwide with approximately 500 employees in less than a year, we strive to provide, step by step, the necessary resources to process the volume of beverage containers collected from approximately 80,000 merchants. The opening of the new factory in Bacău represents an important step in ensuring a solid infrastructure for the Guarantee-Return System, to support our efforts in promoting recycling and protecting the environment. Thus, we benefit both the environment, by reducing waste, and the local community, by creating jobs and stimulating the economic development of the region. We are confident that, together with all our partners, we will build an efficient and responsible system that will make Romania a leader in the field of recycling and the circular economy," says Gemma Webb, CEO and President of the RetuRO Directorate.