Radio România Internațional

Tag: waste

  • February 9, 2024 UPDATE

    February 9, 2024 UPDATE

    FARMERS The government of Romania has approved a support package for
    farmers, including loans with lower interest rates and electricity subsidies.
    On the other hand, the European Commission Friday approved a EUR 241 mln aid
    scheme, requested by Romania to support farmers in the context of Russia’s war
    against Ukraine. The aid will be provided as direct grants not exceeding EUR
    280,000 per beneficiary. Romania also benefits from EUR 34 mln from the EU’s Solidarity
    Fund, in support for the damages suffered as a result of the drought of 2022.
    The money was already transferred in December of last year, and Romania has one
    and a half years to implement the scheme.




    ELECTIONS Merging European Parliament elections and local elections
    on June 9 is on the agenda of the ruling coalition in Bucharest. According to
    some political sources, the Social Democrats also proposed combining the
    elections for the national Parliament with the first or second round of the
    presidential elections, which would complement the first scenario. The opposition
    is firmly against these initiatives. Save Romania Union has announced it has
    started proceedings to ask the Venice Commission for a point of view on merging
    European Parliament and local elections less than six months before the
    election date. This year all four types of elections are scheduled in Romania -
    parliamentary, European, local and presidential.




    EXPORTS Romania’s
    exports last year exceeded EUR 93 bln, 1.3% more than in 2022, according to the
    National Statistics Institute. Imports on the other hand reached EUR 122 bln, 3.2%
    below 2022. The trade balance deficit amounted to roughly EUR 29 bln, more than
    EUR 5.1 bln less than in 2022. The automotive industry and transport equipment
    sector accounted for important shares in the structure of both imports and
    exports.






    WASTE Romania is the country generating the smallest amount of waste
    in the EU, the Eurostat announced. According to data released by the EU
    statistics office, 513kg of municipal waste were generated in average by each
    EU inhabitant in 2022, which is 19kg less than in the previous year. The
    largest amounts are generated in Austria (827kg per capita), followed by
    Denmark and Luxemburg (over 700kg). At the opposite pole, Romania generates 300kg
    per capita. Although it generates the smallest amounts of municipal waste,
    Romania also recycles the least in the EU-around 36kg out of the 300kg per capita,
    as against the EU average of 249kg per capita. Malta, Greece and Cyprus also
    recycle less than 100kg per capita, as compared to Austria, where the average
    is 510kg per capita.




    UKRAINE President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appointed General
    Oleksandr Syrskyi as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
    replacing General Valery Zaluzhny. Ukraine’s head of state said it was time for
    changes, and explained that the dismissed general should remain in his team.
    After the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer, Zaluzhny
    warned that the war had reached a stalemate, turning into a war of attrition,
    and that in order to win his country needed technologically superior weapons to
    the Russian ones and more troops. International media note that Valery Zaluzhny
    is more popular among Ukrainians than Zelensky. In another move, the Russian
    president, Vladimir Putin, has threatened the United States with a global war, which
    would bring the whole of humanity to the brink of extinction, if
    Washington sends troops to Ukraine. In an interview to the controversial
    American journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin claimed Russia will fight to
    the end to defend its interests.






    POLO Romania’s national water polo team was defeated by Italy, 16-10,
    in its last match in Group D of the World Championship in Doha, Qatar. In the
    first two matches, the Romanians lost to Hungary and outclassed Kazakhstan
    25-3. Romania ranks third in the group, after Hungary and Italy. Group winners move
    straight into the quarter-finals, while the second and third-ranking teams are
    in for a play-off for the quarters. Last month, Romania finished in the 8th
    place at the European Championship in Croatia. (AMP)

  • The benefits and the challenges of the Guarantee-Return System

    The benefits and the challenges of the Guarantee-Return System


    Romania is still far from meeting the objectives set at the level of the EU. Moreover, Romania is far from complying with the European average percentage for the recycling of waste. As compared to the European average level of 50%, the level of recycling municipal waste stands at a mere 12% in Romania. It could be the main reason why Romania has decided to implement an ambitious Guarantee-Return System, (GRS) targeting primary non-reusable glass, plastic or metal packaging with a storage volume ranging from 0.1 to 3 liters included. The system has been implemented since November 30, following a minute preparation stage.



    According to Green Environment Support, a company specializing in environmental audit, consultancy and waste management, ” through the GRS project, Romania has the capacity to recycle a much bigger quantity of waste in the coming years, thus securing a recycling advantage of up to 80% and becoming a landmark of circular economy and a role model, to that end.”



    After Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Iceland, Estonia, Slovakia, The Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania, Romania is the 11th country in Europe that has implemented such a system. “We all want the GRS system to turn Romania from the country of waste storage into the country of waste recycling”, says the Romanian Minister of the Environment, Waters and Forests, Mircea Fechet.



    “Taking into account the experience of other states that have initiated similar projects, we found out the first year is kind of difficult. In the first year, the system sort of settles in, it becomes more balanced, kind of, a bar code reading may be wrong, sometimes, some other time the equipment may be out of order, it may be disconnected from the supply source…It roughly takes a whole year for the system to become 100% functional, 100% operational. It is Romanias most important public-private partnership, it is Europes largest guarantee-return system, second only to the system in Germany, and for this reason I expect a good cooperation of all the actors involved in the entire process, ,but I also expect patience, as I am positive that in five years time, when we look back and find out we have a clean country, a country without plastic bottles, without waste, without packaging waste, we can say it was a very good idea, that of implementing this system. “



    Statistical data have revealed that every year, in Romania, there are roughly 116 kilograms of packaging, of waste, per capita. Of those, less than a half are being recycled. The GRS project targets 80,000 beverage traders who will have to implement facilities for the collection of the 7 billion pieces of reusable plastic packages resulting in one year alone. The principle of the system is a simple one: a guarantee of 50 bani ( around 10 Eurocents) is paid at the purchase of a given beverage (water, soft drinks, beer, cider, wine, spirits) from a trader, the sum of money what will be returned later. To be more specific, when the package is emptied, the consumer will have to bring it to one of the return points set up by the traders. The consumer will then receive, on the spot, the value of the guarantee, in cash, as a voucher or via card transfer. And that without having to produce the receipt, even if the given product was not purchased from that commercial unit. The products that are part of the system are marked with a specific logo.



    Minister Mircea Fechet once again:



    “Any shop will have to provide a collection point. The collection will be done automatically, if the shop considers the number of packages is big enough to account for such an expense, through an RVM, a Reverse Vending Machine, or manually. In other words, the seller, will also have two bags under the counter, one for glass and one for PETs packaging, most likely, mixed with aluminum doses and, whenever someone shows up to return suck a packaging, that particular seller will pay 0.50 bani for each packaging and will collects the packaging in bags, waiting for the RetuRO company to arrive and take the returned packaging away and compensate with the value of the guarantee, on one hand, and with a management fee. Which means that, a shop, smaller or bigger, with an automatic or a manual collection, will be compensated for this work that they do, that of collecting the packaging from individuals.”



    In its capacity of manager of the GRS system, RetuRO has announced it would open 17 dedicated centers in the coming year, where they will transport the beverage packaging collected from the tens of thousands of traders. The containers will be counted, sorted and prepared for transportation by the recycling companies, with the clear purpose of producing recycled raw material, to be used in the production of new beverage packaging.



    Romanian Minister Mircea Fechet once again:



    “If we look at the guarantee-return systems of other European countries, we can see that in Germany, for instance, we have 95% glass and 98% of aluminum cans. Now, we may not be able, from the very first time, to meet the percentages of Germany, however, beginning with the third year of functioning, the system should work according to the parameters that will have to stand at more than 90%. Which I think that, for Romania, it is a tremendous progress. “



    Apart from advantages, the implementation of the RGS system in Romania may also pose a series of challenges. In general, producers, importers and the big retailers have taken a series of pre-emptive measures capable of making such an implementation simpler. However, if we take the smaller businesses into account, the situation is different, in that the smaller businesses face the challenge of finding the area that will have to be dedicated for the collection of the returned packaging or the investment required for the purchase of the Reverse Vending Machines. In another move, the fraud risk does exist. Some of the consumers may try to overdo it, returning counterfeit packaging, which requires the implementation of proper security measures.




  • Alternative music festivals in Romania, back on track

    Alternative music festivals in Romania, back on track

    The lay public’s quest
    for cultural events as social experiences has seen an upsurge after the
    COVID-19 pandemic, People are on the lookout for performances, festivals, fairs
    and other events. The weather outside is really fine, so the cultural events
    have been relocated to outdoor premises, in parks, gardens, public squares or
    other areas with a special destination. A telling example of that is provided by
    the Rocanotherworld Festival, held on the outskirts of Iasi, a city located in
    north-eastern Romania, nearby the Aroneanu Lake, which is an artificial dam
    lake in the Moldavian Plains. Alternative and electronic music, artistic manifestations,
    conferences, food and merry-making, all that is set to populate the green area
    on the lake shores in late June. Patricia Butucel is the director of the Rocanotherworld festival. She has
    given details on what Rocanotherworld actually is and on the surprises the
    organizers have in store for the public

    Rocanotherworld will reach its
    7th edition this year and we’re happy we can return to normal, to an
    event set to unfold just as it was before the pandemic, with no restrictions. The
    2022 edition has got a novelty ready for everyone: we shall have the festival
    on the shores of the Aroneanu Lake, it is a new and beautiful space which
    perfectly suits this year’s trend. The artists performing at the festival are
    local bands, but also national and foreign ones. We will also have a DJ on the
    electronic music stage and we’re happy we’re going to get the festival started
    with a really fine band, fresh, which is set to grow, and we’re dead positive
    it will earn its place among the top alternative rock bands, with Paul Tihan.
    We shall also have those of the Suie Paparude band, we will have the launch of
    an album, we shall have two album launches, actually, Man to the Moon, and Madalina
    Paval with an orchestra. Republic of Modova’s Zdob and Zdub will also come
    over, then we will also have Golan, Alternosfera, Kumm, the lineup we’re going
    to have will be so diversified, and as an absolute first we shall have a great
    international band, the Nouvelle Vague. And we’re delighted because of the
    start we’ve taken and because of this trend, an international one, that
    including the electronic music stage as well. There will be DJs from our
    country but also foreign DJs, from Portugal, we will also a woman DJ from
    Ukraine who has relocated to Romania. We will also have an acoustic music
    stage, we will have silent disco. We tried, like, to create a mix so that our
    public can have as diversified an experience as possible. Zdob and Zdub, we saw
    that they were, like, were we to make a chart, they were the favorites for our
    public, as for Alternosfera or the French artists, Nouvelle Vague, likewise,
    they are among the favorites for the Rocanotherworld public.


    Here is the festival director, Patricia Butucel,
    once again, this time speaking about the fans of the event, which will soon see
    its seventh edition, about the public and the community that has revolved
    around the festival.


    The Rocanotherworld public, we could say it mainly is a
    faithful public since there are a great many people who have been with us since
    the inaugural edition, in 2016. They proved they support us and that, actually,
    together we are a community. And that also happened in the pandemic years,
    since Rocanotherworld was held in 2020, but also in 2021, and we’re clearly
    speaking about the pandemic editions, with all sorts of restrictions and, no
    matter what the circumstances and the context was, people stood by us. Before,
    we used to speak about, I don’t know, some sort of reluctance when we meant
    festivals, now we can see people are much mop reopen, much more eager to attend
    events and especially outdoor events.


    But how did people prepare for Rocanotherworld? What are the challenges
    for the organizers and where is the festival’s 2022 edition heading to?


    There’s this relaxation and charging side of the event
    we want to offer to our public, but we also sought to organize an event which
    for them is safe, especially after what
    has happened in Bucharest as of late. This week I even went to see the local
    authorities with whom we met quite often, we had meetings with the Anti-Drug
    Squad, because we want the whole experience to remain a safe one, for our
    participants, but also for the volunteers, for the artists involved, and for
    all the people who will come to the festival.


    Starting last year, Rocanotherworld has embarked on the path of
    sustainability, and I’m saying that because we want to meet the Zero Waste set
    target. But that is something utopian, for the time being, however, it’s the
    least we can do, through organizing and positioning, to help people as well, to
    encourage them to have a sustainable behavior and a nature-friendly one as
    much as possible. So, as I was saying, as of last year, we have ticked our
    short, medium and long-terms goals. We began by the separate collection of
    waste. We used sustainable materials for the festival’s production and
    signaling system. We replaced the classical promotion, made with OH-type
    banners and advertising boards, with the digital OH side. We encouraged and
    facilitated the use of alternative means of transport, such as electric push
    scooters, bicycles or public transport. In effect, the entire planning of the
    festival, the entire organization, was based on prevention, reusing, redesign
    and recycling principles. What we’re going to do, actually, for 2022, we shall
    prepare 4 days of unique experiences for the Rocanotherworld public, there will be something
    people can live during the event. We will
    have daytime activities, there will be relaxation areas, games, we will have an
    escalation board, we will have silent disco, debates, acoustic stage, live
    music, electronic music stages, so we will try to create a universe where
    people can come and relax completely.


    (EN)

  • February 7, 2022 UPDATE

    February 7, 2022 UPDATE

    COVID-19
    Bucharest extended the COVID-19 related state of alert in the country for
    another 30 days, beginning on Monday, February 7. Face covering remains compulsory
    both indoors and outdoors. In places with infection rates below 3 per
    thousand, cinema and theatre
    halls as well as restaurants may operate at 50% of their capacity, with the
    ceiling going down to 30% in places with infection rates above this level. An
    emergency order also extends the deadline for filling in the digital forms for
    entering the country, from 24 to 72 hours. Nearly 17,000 new
    Covid cases were reported in Romania on Monday, along with 81 related
    fatalities. In the capital Bucharest the incidence rate continues to rise,
    reaching 32.75 per thousand on Monday. The vaccination rate is close to 42% in
    urban communities and around 30% in the countryside. Only 8 million adults are
    fully vaccinated so far.


    RESIGNATION The president of USR party in opposition, Dacian Cioloş, Monday
    announced his resignation. The decision came after the party’s National Bureau
    convened on Monday rejected Cioloş’s plans to change the structure and
    operation of the party, with 14 votes against and 11 in favour. Dacian Cioloş, who
    had been elected to office in October, when the right-of-centre USR and PLUS
    parties had merged, warned his colleagues that he would step down unless his
    restructuring plan was implemented. USR vice-president Cătălin Drulă will take
    over as interim party president.


    DIPLOMACY The Romanian foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu said there was no danger of
    Romania being drawn into a military conflict with the Russian Federation.
    Romanian citizens need not worry that we will be dragged into a war close to
    our country, he said in an interview on a private television channel. There
    is at the moment a very powerful security umbrella, which provides all possible
    guarantees for the security and stability of Romania and its citizens, and this
    umbrella is the NATO membership, adding to which is the very strong strategic
    partnership with the US, minister Aurescu mentioned. If Russia attacks
    Ukraine, he added, responses will come both from NATO, which will consolidate
    its eastern flank, and from the EU, which will introduce a substantial set of
    economic and individual sanctions targeting the political decision-makers in
    Russia. In turn, the head of the Information and Public Relations Directorate
    with the Defence Ministry, brigadier general Constantin Spînu, said that the crisis in Ukraine is not a security
    situation that directly concerns Romania or any other NATO member state. Romanians and all other nations in the Euro-Atlantic
    space should not feel directly threatened, gen. Spînu said.


    AGRICULTURE Romania’s agriculture minister Adrian Chesnoiu rules out a
    possible food crisis in Romania and a food rationing scenario. He says the
    authorities are looking for solutions to support both citizens and farmers.
    Chesnoiu also says that authorities are considering the options of introducing
    ceilings on food prices or of stabilising and balancing prices.

    WASTE
    The number of border checkpoints where waste can be brought to Romania for
    recycling will be reduced to 15, and all shipments will have to be entered in
    an electronic register as soon as possible, the environment minister Tánczos
    Barna announced on Monday. The authorities want to make sure that waste is not
    misplaced or discarded in unauthorised places. Last year alone, more than 500
    offences related to waste imports were identified, and over 15,000 tonnes of
    mixed waste were prevented from entering the country, the interior minister Lucian
    Bode said in his turn.


    OLYMPICS Natalia Ushkina, Romania’s representative in
    the biathlon contest has ended the competition on the 57th place in the
    individual 15 km race at the winter Olympics in Beijing. In
    the giant slalom event, Maria Ioana Constantin also from Romania, has come out
    45th, while another Romanian, Raluca
    Strămăturaru, is ranking 30th after the first 2 legs of the luge event. At the current
    edition of the winter Olympic Games, Romania is being represented by 21
    athletes. (A.M.P., D.B.)

  • Pollution and its aggressive forms in Romania

    Pollution and its aggressive forms in Romania



    Pollution in the big urban conglomerates seems to have been on the wane, because of the traffic restrictions imposed by the pandemic, mainly during the state of emergency in the first half of 2020. Back then, in Romania, car traffic and, implicitly, the gas emissions generated by cars had seen a sensible downturn, especially in Bucharest. We recall that among the European capital cities, the Romanian capital city is second-placed according to the pollution level. Notwithstanding, a worrying phenomenon resurfaced, which was somehow ignored, previously. Were speaking about the burning of waste in the rural areas surrounding Bucharest. The thick fog and the choking smell, typical for the fires, has been and still is unkindly felt by Bucharesters living on the outskirts of the capital city. Just as it has happened many times before, the civil society was the first one to have drawn the alarm signal because of that.



    Oana Neneciu is the coordinator of the Aerlive environment sensors network and a member of the Ecopolis environmental association.



    Oana Neneciu: “



    “Unfortunately, we do not have data provided by the public authorities, officially, which should deal with such a phenomenon. We do not have relevant data, at that. We only have information provided by those who did their fact-finding visits on the ground and information we collected when we did our field work ourselves. It is about stuff provided by disaggregation of cars, mainly tires, and generally speaking, materials that cannot be recycled any more. They are taken to the fields or areas belonging to communes, or to areas surrounding Bucharest, but also in Dambovita County, for instance. They are taken there because they come in large quantities, and are burned, from time to time. They are just set ablaze by the members of village communities, about whom we understand they are in the disaggregation business as well. Yet we cannot give too many details since we do not have official data to that effect. That is why we, those of the Ecopolis non-governmental organisation and Aerlive, this autumn, we initiated a campaign running as Burned Air. We try to document the phenomenon so as to see where those materials come from, what happens to them, why they end up being burned on the fields and why the municipalities in those localities are still undecided as to what they need to do about that. For instance, we would like to know why they are not collected by the sanitation workers who do their job in those areas, to avoid the incineration of those materials.”



    A recent survey carried by Aerlive with the support of The Atomic Physics Institute in Magurele has shown how damaging such incinerations are. The survey has revealed that, whenever household stove waste is incinerated, PM10 particles containing carcinogen substances are released in the atmosphere. Their quantity is much greater than the quantity of firewood burning waste. The study has also revealed that when plastic waste is incinerated, (PET, polyurethane foam, garment items) the toxicity is thousands of times higher, of the hydrocarbon particles released 700 times more than the wood-burning gas emissions. As of late, the phenomenon has nevertheless been gaining ground alarmingly enough for the authorities to do something about it. For instance, The Emergency Situations Inspectorate, in 2020 has reported more than 130 waste incineration interventions for the Bucharest-Ilfov area. All told, more than 870 tons of waste were burned.



    Oana Neneciu:



    “The Emergency Situations Inspectorate only reports the interventions it carries on private properties where uncontrolled incinerations are made, that is around the courtyards or even in the courtyards of private owners, for instance. But the fires in the fields, lit quite often, are put out by the very people who lit them, before the Emergency Situations Inspectorate gets there. In the fields, the Environment Guard also got there when they carried a series of large-scale control operations this past spring, they somehow managed to document a small part of the problem, in the village of Sintesti. But in fact, we do not have that many data on the issue, which is also worrying for us as well. That is why we have somehow tried to put pressure on the authorities so that they may find a solution.”



    The European Commission itself has provided an explanation for such huge quantities of waste, which are not collected, nor are they properly stored. Romania is yet again to appear before the European Court of Justice for failing to comply with the Waste Framework Directive. In effect, Romania has failed to improve enough landfills so that the storage of waste does not jeopardize peoples health and does not pollute the environment.”



    The Association for Nature and Environment Protection, led by activist Bogdan Tucmeanu, has for many years now been dealing with the situation of the landfills around Bucharest.



    Bogdan Tucmeanu:



    “As we speak, in the north-western part of the capital city there is a cluster of sanitation and landfill operators. There are about 6 or 7 firms dealing with that, apart from one of the most important such objectives, the Capital citys landfill, of the general Municipality, that is, lying nearby the locality of Rudeni, in fact lying in the area of Sector 1. From one year to the next, pollution problems have become greater. All those facilities Ive told you about and to which a great many industrial objectives are added, are extremely polluting. There are very many industrial or semi-industrial objectives which in turn contribute, to a great extent, to the all too familiar traffic-generated pollution or the one caused by residential heating.”



    The non-compliant landfills release thick smells but also damaging chemical substances, while it appears that the waste which fails to be taken to those unmodernised facilities is burned. Moreover, the incineration of waste seems to have its economic reasons. For instance, tires and electric cables are burned because, as soon as the rubber melts, the metal inside can be put to good use.



    Bogdan Tucmeanu:



    “Indeed, this is a distressful trend and an extremely toxic way some people have chosen to make a living. The thing is we cannot quantify the proportion of such a misadventure generated by the waste incineration performed so that certain materials can be made available, especially the rare metals. And then again, the institutions failing to take action or their lack of coherence are a hindrance for us. And let me give you one example, it is an episode which is amusing, apparently, but which, in fact, is dramatic. Once a fire broke on the premises of one of those waste recycling firms. 15 minutes after we got there, the 112 system issued an alert message signalling a wildfire, although the fire brigade had also been there.”



    As of late, a draft law has been nonetheless submitted to the Senate, including the suggestion whereby the illegal incineration of waste should be categorised as a crime, punishable by a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months and a maximum of three years in prison, or a fine given in court.


    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)




  • Education for life in Romania

    Education for life in Romania


    Recent studies have revealed that, globally
    speaking, the production of plastic will go up by 40% in the next decade. Plastic generates highly polluting waste,
    so measures will have to be taken ASAP. In English, the acronym ASAP stands for
    AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. The acronym has been transcoded into Romanian as a label for
    a project meant to improve the selection of waste, and it goes like Armata Selectării Atente a Plasticului, in English, the Army of the Careful
    Selection of Plastic. As of this year, The Army of the Careful
    Selection of Plastic helps municipalities from across Romania to educate the
    pupils as efficiently as they can, for the selective waste collection, to
    create, in schools, the infrastructure which is required for that type of
    collection, also seeking to provide the quality of the fraction-based
    collection of waste, jointly with the sanitation services.     By and large, combatting
    pollution and the sustainable living influences us, especially in the future,
    ASAP mainly targets the generations to come, which, anyway, are more open to
    that kind of action. Andrei Bortun is the initiator of the Army of the Careful Selection
    of Plastic.

    Andrei Bortun:


    We have noticed that so
    far quite a few campaigns have also been carried, of communication and education,
    which, by and large, tell the citizens and sometimes the younger public that it
    is important to collect selectively. It’s just that in Romania, and for that particular
    reason the country is faring rather poorly, there is no infrastructure capable
    of meeting the needs of those who could be persuaded to have that type of behaviour.
    And then, as long as our target public was made of teenagers and youngsters, we
    examined the map of Romania and we saw there was an extraordinary network made
    of Romania’s schools and high schools. There are around 19,000 educational
    units, the
    biggest possible collection infrastructure you can find in Romania countrywide.
    Obviously, we were aware schools fall within the local administrations or municipalities,
    whether we speak about the big cities or about villages. There’s something else
    I should like to draw your attention to, the law compels the local authorities
    to collect selectively and provide the required infrastructure for all that is
    included in the state institutions, so it’s also about schools. Therefore,
    legislation-wise, things were, and still are, very clear. Reason enough for
    ASAP to try and provide all the pieces of information the local authorities may
    need, legislative, financial, or related to the creation of the collection infrastructure,
    so that each municipality may supply the schools under their administration
    with the appropriate infrastructure.


    The programme labelled ASAP kicked off in this year’s summer through a
    pilot project run in 69 educational units in Bucharest’s 6th District. In three moths alone, the ASAP programme made
    it possible for 450 kilograms of plastic to be collected. More than 6,000
    kilograms of paper and more than 130,000 kilos of mixed waste were also collected,
    as part of ASAP. Partnerships were signed later, with Bucharest’s Sectors
    number 1, 2, and 3. The same goes for cities countrywide, such as Brașov, Constanța, Iași,
    Arad, Sibiu, Târgu Mureș, Alba Iulia, Ploiești and Zalău. After the country’s
    cities, the project will also target the rural areas, where the need is still
    pending, for the already delayed selective collection of waste. Actually, the European
    Commission has already fined Romania, heavily, for that particular reason, so
    the ensuing penalties that are to be paid are huge. Considering its scope, the
    project has henceforth been thought out to unfold for many years, while some of
    its set targets are collateral.

    Andrei Bortun:


    We work with teenagers and youngsters. Research has
    revealed they are quite willing to get involved, all the more so as they’re being
    provided with the appropriate tools. Literature has also revealed that there is
    a real chance for the adolescents who get involved in the project to initiate,
    in turn, an undertaking of educating their own families, parents, and communities.
    And for that particular reason, it is them that we have in mind and not another
    category of the public. The results of the research studies have been confirmed
    by the discussions we had with them. What is being confirmed lies not only with
    the interest they have for that theme, we noticed there was something jittery about
    them, in their attitude, which was also revolutionary and frustrated because
    things around them do not happen in a more correct manner, and that not only as
    regards waste collection. We do believe and hope that many of those who will
    get involved in the project will become better citizens. ‘Cause we find it hard
    to think that if they put the glass, the plastic and the paper waste in
    recipients of different colors they will remain indifferent to what abusive
    logging entails, or that they won’t be voting when they are summoned to vote
    and suchlike. For that particular reason, it is important to have a project we’ve
    thought out longer term and not just some specific actions since we’re fortunate
    enough to have a bunch of youngsters who want to get involved in change-triggering
    projects.


    One of the directions of the
    projects lies with the analysis of the waste that has already been collected,
    to make sure they don’t get mixed up and the wet-dry separate waste fractions
    collection is being observed. To that end, ASAP has initiated a partnership
    with Green Point Management, a company implementing projects targeting the producers’
    extended responsibility.

    Green Point Management Deputy Chief Executive Officer
    Andrei Dinescu:


    We
    found out that waste composition determination is more than welcome. What does composition
    determination mean? It is a procedure based on existing standards and actually
    means collecting the waste from those schools, carrying them onto a specially-arranged
    platform, where our specialists divided them according to types and fractions.
    That was important, as we could thus see how much recyclable waste was lost into
    the so-called municipal waste as no selective collection is being made. We were
    astounded to realize that as much as 40% of the so-called municipal waste was
    in fact recyclable, had it been collected selectively. Normally, it would have
    reached a factory and would have returned in other produce, instead of ending
    up in the landfill.


    Given such a high percentage,
    standing at 40%, of the mix of the municipal waste with the recyclable one, it
    is not about happenstance or an accident, it is about the lack of the selection
    infrastructure in the apartment blocks, districts or institutions, but also
    about educating people to that end, which is something that hasn’t been done.

    Deputy Chief Executive officer Andrei Dinescu:


    This educating process needs to be supported longer term. But the
    very moment you tell people why they should collect selectively and how to collect
    selectively, people need to have the selective collection infrastructure at
    their fingertips. Considering all our previous
    projects, we realized the former cannot exist without the latter. My personal
    opinion is that Romania has reached the point where real steps need to be taken to that effect. We are an EU member state and we have certain responsibilities
    towards the others, but, first of all, towards ourselves. Educating, raising
    awareness and making the infrastructure available are obligations. Municipalities
    have access to funding, to that end. Also, the sanitation departments know what
    their job is. It’s just that they need to be taken into account and mobilized. The
    population is prepared as well. We see more and more people holding us to
    account, to that effect, these are the people who also hold municipalities
    accountable. I honestly believe that a nationwide educational and
    awareness-raising project is the most useful thing.


    For this awareness-raising
    campaign, ASAP concluded partnerships with the aforementioned municipalities,
    but also with the Environment, Waters and Forests Ministry, as well as with the
    National Council of Pupils.

    (Translated by Eugen Nasta)

  • Romanians and their food habits

    Romanians and their food habits


    Food waste is one of the most worrying aftermaths of
    today’s consumerism, and Romania is not spared that scourge either. Food waste
    has become really troublesome so much so that in 2016 a bill was passed to
    fight food waste. Unfortunately, the implementation standards of the law are
    yet to be completed. Big quantities of food are being thrown in the litter bin
    by the Romanians, according to recent estimates. Such quantities are large
    enough to load more than 120,000 trucks each year. Food costs account for 40%
    of Romanians’ incomes, but unfortunately, 35 to 40% of the food ends in the
    litter bin. Clearer and more recent pieces of information have recently been
    made public thanks to a sociological survey carried in the summer and autumn of
    2020 by Cluj-Napoca’s University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary
    medicine, as part of an international project financed by the Francophone
    University Agency. The research focused on three countries, Romania, Republic
    of Moldova and Northern Macedonia. The results were not that much different
    from one country to the next, of the three aforementioned states. For instance,
    taking food habits into account, the vast majority of the respondents stated
    they more often than not made a shopping list, which speaks about prudence and
    precaution. Also, around 90% of respondents said they usually cooked at home,
    which, at least in theory, meant a lower degree of degradation for the food,
    since it was cooked as fresh as possible. However, the study carried by the
    university in Cluj only confirms earlier estimates on food waste in Romania. Cristina Pocol is the coordinator of the research team:

    Irrespective of their country of
    origin, respondents said they throw food away. 83% of Romanian respondents said
    that. A similar answer was provided by 78.8% of the respondents from Republic
    of Moldova, as well as by 67.2% respondents in Northern Macedonia. There are
    quite a few habits related to food waste. We wanted to find our whether
    respondents checked the expiry date of a certain food produce. Most of them
    said they never failed to do that each time they took their consumer’s
    decision. Then most of the respondents are very particular about the way they
    store their food, where and how they do that. And are somehow interested in
    avoiding food waste. Practically, it was very interesting for us to find out
    that, when asked how interested they were in avoiding the waste of food, for
    their most part they said they were very interested, and that it was a topic
    they really cared about. But that comes in stark contrast with their behavior.
    Okay, they are interested in the topic of food waste, but they throw food away.
    These two things just don’t add up. They do no know how to curb waste, they do
    not have the required methods to do that, meaning that for them, education to
    that end is in short supply. Let me just say that once again, most of them
    throw food away. Most of them are interested in the topic of food waste.
    However, we notice such a contradiction did exist. And the explanation I found
    for that was that they try, and have that in mind, but they do not put that
    into practice. They do not put that into practice for several reasons: they may
    have tried and failed in their efforts, and when it comes to that, we also need
    to see the reason why they failed.


    Also, according to the respondents of the survey,
    those who waste most of the food are the restaurants and the individual
    consumers, while economic operators come in third, especially the supermarkets
    where people mainly make their purchase. Cristina Pocol:


    We had a question related to the
    buying habits. We still noticed a behavior pattern which practically comes a s
    no surprise for us. For their most part, people do their shopping from the
    supermarket and the hypermarket. Very few people for the time being, opt for
    the small traders, for the short supply circuits. Most of them resort to the
    hypermarkets, and then they go to the marketplace. Very few of them use the
    short circuits or value the producer’s direct relationship with the consumer,
    which is very important in various respects. Actually, the retail gives you the
    opportunity to consume fresh and genuine products, Romanian products. So I
    believe there’s a lot more work to do when it comes to that, meaning we also
    need to carry education campaigns to that end. Nonetheless, it would be better
    to raise the consumers’ awareness on the importance of buying local.


    The sanitary crisis triggered by the COVID-19 virus
    did not change the buying habits in Romanian and Republic of Moldova. About two
    thirds of the respondents stated they could buy the same quantity of food with
    the same money. However, a change does exist, which occurred during the
    pandemic, but it was not the one we expected. Cristina Pocol:


    The crisis triggered by the
    COVID-19 virus prompted more than 10% of the respondents to throw more food
    away. I expected a totally different result. In my mind, the following
    mechanism was working: I thought that, since we had the lockdown, we were more
    careful about what we eat, how we eat and how we plan our shopping. That is why
    started off from the assumption whereby such a thing would have food waste
    reduction as a result. The outcome of the study has revealed otherwise. 10% of
    the respondents say they throw more during the pandemic. I tried to find
    explanations to that. Much larger stocks may have been made. That could be the
    main explanation. We all know what happened at the beginning of the sanitary
    crisis, when people went wild buying boxes of food, they bought food in very
    large quantities for fear they would be deprived of food supplies. That could
    be an explanation. That food could not be consumed straight away and in a
    relatively short period of time. So, part of it was disposed of. I believe the
    clear explanation for all that is the fact that, eventually, too much storage
    of food lead to waste.


    Meanwhile, some of the economic operators and civic
    associations stage awareness-raising campaigns for a within-bounds consumption
    rate and for the fated consequences food waste has on the economy as well as on
    the environment. InfoCons is an NGO that has staged such a campaign targeting
    the economic costs of food waste. Sorin
    Mierlea is the president of InfoCons. He believes that, if emphasis is laid on
    economic loss, the message for fighting food waste is easier to reach the
    public. Sorin Mierlea:


    First off, when we speak about food
    waste it is not the problematics we discuss, but we also need to consider the
    money we pay each time we buy food products that end in the litter bin
    afterwards. That kind of cost means hours of work while those hours of work
    eventually mean the life of every one of us. In another move, I believe that
    each and every one of us, in our capacity as consumers, need to have all the
    data and the info lest we have no choice other than saying we did not know
    anything about it. Therefore, InfoCons, jointly with other entities in other
    countries, since this it’s a cross-border project, has set out to raise the
    public opinion’s but also the public authorities’ awareness on the impact food waste may have.


    Held in schools, during the homeroom classes, also using digital resources, the InfoCons campaign offers the required tools so that the prospective consumers may be correctly informed on food waste.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)







  • 21 September 2019, UPDATE

    21 September 2019, UPDATE

    Presidential race. Two more
    candidates have joined the race for the presidential elections to be held in
    Romania in November. They are Kelemen Hunor, from the Democratic Union of
    Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, and Mircea Diaconu, who has the backing of the
    Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Pro Romania party. The incumbent
    president Klaus Iohannis, on behalf of the National Liberal Party, and Dan
    Barna, who is backed by the USR-PLUS alliance, officially joined the race on
    Friday. Other candidates include the Social Democrat prime minister Viorica
    Dancila and Theodor Paleologu, on behalf of the People’s Movement Party. The
    deadline for registering in the election race expires Sunday at midnight. The
    election campaign begins on the 12th of October, but the outdoor
    advertising has already begun in Bucharest.




    Visit. Romania’s prime minister Viorica
    Dancila on Sunday begins a 1-week working visit to the United States. She will
    be accompanied by the defence minister Gabriel Les and the finance minister
    Eugen Teodorovici. Dancila says she will have talks with vice-president Mike
    Pence and attend a meeting on combating terrorism. She has also spoken about the
    signing of a memorandum on energy and of a document in the area of health with
    the World Bank. Her agenda also features meetings with American business
    people, whom she will present with the advantages of investing in Romania. The
    prime minister also says she plans to meet representatives of the Romanian
    community in the United States.




    Waste. It’s been nine years since
    the Let’s Do It, Romania! organisation has been organising a campaign in which
    tens of thousands of volunteers gather to collect tonnes of waste. The
    initiative forms part of a wider project involving more than a hundred
    countries from around the world. A volunteering action to clean Romania’s
    beaches also began on Saturday. According to its organiser, the Act for
    Tomorrow association, waste floating on the water surface near the Black Sea
    shore is collected. On Monday, divers will pick some of the solid waste on the
    sea bed along the coast. An activity to clean the banks and waters of the river
    Danube will be carried out in October. 254 kg of household waste per capita per
    year is produced in Romania, and less than 10% is recycled, much below the
    European average of 28%. If Romania fails to achieve a recycling rate of 50%
    starting next year, it faces penalties of up to 200,000 euros a day and the
    suspension of EU funds for environmental protection.




    Navy vessel. The Mircea training
    vessel is completing this weekend its first stops in the Danube ports in its 80
    years in the service of the Romanian Navy. Its journey began on the 15th
    of September in Tulcea, followed by Galati, Braila, and, finally, Sulina.
    According to a statement from the Naval Forces, tens of thousands of people have
    visited the vessel this week.



  • September 21, 2019

    September 21, 2019

    Presidential race. Two more
    candidates have joined the race for the presidential elections to be held in
    Romania in November. They are Kelemen Hunor, from the Democratic Union of
    Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, and Mircea Diaconu, who has the backing of the
    Alliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Pro Romania party. The incumbent
    president Klaus Iohannis, on behalf of the National Liberal Party, and Dan
    Barna, who is backed by the USR-PLUS alliance, officially joined the race on
    Friday. Other candidates include the Social Democrat prime minister Viorica
    Dancila and Theodor Paleologu, on behalf of the People’s Movement Party. The
    deadline for registering in the election race expires Sunday at midnight. The
    election campaign begins on the 12th of October, but the outdoor
    advertising has already begun in Bucharest. Political commentators say this
    pre-campaign period is characterised by a greater variety of political figures
    compared with the previous elections, while in terms of the aesthetics of the
    advertising materials, the focus appears to be on images rather than slogans.




    Securitate. The former president of
    Romania between 2004 and 2014 Traian Basescu collaborated with the Securitate,
    the communist secret police, the Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled on Friday,
    almost 30 years after the collapse of the communist regime. The ruling is not
    final and Basescu, who currently serves as an Euro MP on behalf of the People’s
    Movement Party, says he will appeal it in the Supreme Court. According to the
    National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, the former president
    wrote two reports signed under the secret name of Petrov in 1957, when he was
    an officer in the commercial navy. As a result of one of these reports, the
    Securitate prevented one of Basescu’s colleagues from being sent to work on a
    ship that sailed abroad. Since the early 2000s, the National Council for the
    Study of the Securitate Archives has issued a number of memos saying Traian
    Basescu did not collaborate with the Securitate. Also, to be able to occupy
    public positions, Basescu himself had to sign declarations stating that he did
    not work with the communist secret police.




    Waste. It’s been nine years since
    the Let’s Do It, Romania! organisation has been organising a campaign in which
    tens of thousands of volunteers gather to collect tonnes of waste. The
    initiative forms part of a wider project involving more than a hundred
    countries from around the world. A volunteering action to clean Romania’s
    beaches has also got under way. According to its organiser, the Act for
    Tomorrow association, waste floating on the water surface near the Black Sea
    shore is collected. On Monday, divers will pick some of the solid waste on the
    sea bed along the coast. An activity to clean the banks and waters of the river
    Danube will be carried out in October. 254 kg of household waste per capita per
    year is produced in Romania, and less than 10% is recycled, much below the
    European average of 28%. If Romania fails to achieve a recycling rate of 50%
    starting next year, it faces penalties of up to 200,000 euros a day and the
    suspension of EU funds for environmental protection.






    Anniversary. The city of Bucharest
    celebrates 560 years since it was first recorded in historical documents. To
    mark this anniversary, a number of events are taking place this weekend around
    the city, including performances, concerts, light projections and others. The 6th
    edition of an international 3D video mapping competition is held on Saturday
    evening, with 8 teams projecting their videos on the facade of the Palace of
    Parliament. Bucharest is also hosting the 10th edition of the
    Aero-Nautical Show, the only festival in the country combing air and water
    acrobatics.




    Enescu festival. Two days are left until the final concert of
    this year’s George Enescu International Festival. Saturday’s highlights include
    a concert by the Bucharest Symphonic Orchestra conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu;
    a performance by the French pianist François-Frédéric Guy, who has earned an
    international reputation in particular for renditions of the music of German
    Romanticism; the Mahler Chamber Orchestra which brings together musicians from
    20 different countries give a performance at the Romanian Athenaeum featuring
    the pianist and conductor Mitsuko Uchida; while Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw
    Orchestra are giving a concert in the evening. The George Enescu International
    Festival, which is co-produced by Radio Romania, has this year brought together
    over 2,500 of the world’s greatest musicians in 84 different concerts and
    recitals.

  • Marine waste

    Marine waste

    Increasing amounts of plastic litter
    are dumped into the waters, affecting the health of ecosystems. Studies show
    that by 2050 the amount of litter will exceed that of fish, as tonnes of pieces
    of plastic litter are floating in the oceans. Plastic accounts for 85% of marine
    waste and genuine ‘islands of plastic’ are floating in the world’s seas. Many
    sea species are mistakenly using micro-particles of plastic as their food and plastic
    thus makes its way into the food humans consume. Environmentalists have already
    pulled alarm signals calling on the authorities to come up with plans to reduce
    the quantity of waste in the world’s seas.




    Luis Popa, director general with the
    Girgore Antipa Natural History Museum in Bucharest explains the impact of plastic
    waste on the sea environment:




    Plastic production began around
    1960s and in the last 50 years we have reached an output of 300 million tonnes
    of plastic at global level. Plastic is 90% made of oil. In fact, plastic
    producers are using the same amount of oil as the entire aeronautic industry. Moreover,
    plastic is a synthetic material, which isn’t biodegradable and this proves to
    be a major downside when it comes to waste disposal. It can pollute the
    environment for hundreds and thousands of years, and even longer in the ocean
    environment. What is the impact of plastic disposal? First there is a direct
    impact on wildlife but it may also have indirect consequences. For instance, if
    plastic particles have made it to the beaches, they may lower the temperature
    there and that may influence tortoises, which need a higher temperature to
    hatch. Half of the plastic disposed in the seas is floatable but there is
    another half that goes straight to the bottom of the ocean affecting the oxygen
    exchange with a heavy impact upon the flora and the fauna there. A good deal of
    these plastic particles become fish food.




    Since 2009, the Mare Nostrum
    Organisation in Constanta has been monitoring the beaches on the Black Sea
    coast, gathering tonnes of waste. 2018 was considered the dirtiest year, with
    the largest amount of waste registered on the Romanian Black Sea coast. Over
    100,000 items of waste have been identified and eliminated since 2014. The city
    of Constanta holds the negative record with 22,612. The towns of Costinesti and
    Corbu have reported the lowest amounts of waste, with around four tonnes each.
    Here is Marian Paiu, an environment expert with the Mare Nostrum NGO.




    Unfortunately, last year we
    reported the largest amount of waste. At the beginning of the year we thought we would have
    an acceptably clean year, but it later turnout out as the dirtiest year, with
    more than 38,000 items of waste reported in autumn alone. This is a very large quantity.
    In 2015 we collected 2,019 items of waste in spring, in 2016 we had 3,885 waste
    items, in 2017 waste went up to 18,000 items, while in 2018 we collected 24,000
    items. This type of waste consists mainly of small items, besides items of
    clothing and fragments of building materials. All this waste we collect and
    then sent to be destroyed is found in the sand, on the beach. In recent years,
    cigarette butts have been the most common type of waste found as part of our
    monitoring activity. For example, in the Constanta sector known as Trei Papuci,
    we found ted more than 6,000 cigarette butts, and this sector doesn’t have more
    than 10,000 square meters in surface area.




    The Mare Nostrum environmental
    organisation is currently running a project aimed at improving public access to
    monitoring data on marine waste with a view to reducing sea pollution in the
    Black Sea basin. The project is also meant to promote stronger cross-border
    integration of information, knowledge and expertise in the areas of environment
    monitoring and marine waste in the Black Sea basin. Marian Paiu explains:




    As part of this project, we have
    been trying to centralise the existing data and to make them available for
    researchers and institutions that could use them to improve their management,
    but also for the general public, to make them aware of how serious the problem
    is. We have already run a workshop to get a sense of the number of institutions
    that collect data on the situation of marine waste and what kind of information
    they have collected and to look at ways to reduce marine waste on the Romanian
    sea coast. The conclusions of the workshop were very revealing as to where we stand at the moment, and I must say we’re not doing too well. Only a handful of institutions collect this kind of data. In
    fact, no one seems to pay attention to how much waste is generated or collected
    every year.




    Four more workshops on marine waste
    and its impact on the Black Sea ecosystem will be held at the beginning of May in
    Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria and Ukraine, as part of the ANEMONE European project.

  • Romania Gets Environmental Infringement Notice

    Romania Gets Environmental Infringement Notice

    The European Parliament has recently adopted draft legislation increasing the share of waste to be recycled, as global economy is becoming more and more polluting. The share of waste to be recycled is to rise from 44% today to 70% by 2030. For packaging materials, such as paper and cardboard, plastics, glass, metal and wood, MEPs propose an 80% target for 2030, with interim 2025 targets for each material.



    The question arises, however, if member states have the capacity to conform to these new targets. Romanias representatives are rather sceptical. MEP and member of the European Peoples Party Marian-Jean Marinescu said:



    Marian-Jean Marinescu: “As a citizen, I want this percentage to rise because we all want to live in a cleaner environment. At the same time, however, we must consider the possibilities, and be realistic, while trying to do more.



    Referring to the situation in Romania, MEP and member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats Maria Grapini notes that:



    Maria Grapini: “The problem is that on the one hand, Romania lacks the technology and investment in recycling technology, and on the other, it lacks the budget to be able to make these investments. I also believe that 2025 is a very close deadline for these targets, which are really high.



    “The problem of waste is very important, we have to address a number of infringements. We must adapt our model for economic development to a greener model, said the former minister for the environment, waters and forests Cristiana Pasca-Palmer at the end of her term. The new occupant of the post Daniel Constantin has announced that the European Commission has launched 10 infringement procedures against Romania because of its environmental problems:



    Daniel Constantin: “Three cities are currently facing an infringement procedure due to the high level of pollution, namely Bucharest, Iasi and Brasov. We are working with the respective local administrations to deal with the procedure. Unfortunately, most of Romanias problems in relation to the European Commission have to do with the environment. We have failed to meet many of the deadlines and commitments we have made, which has led to the launch of 10 infringement procedures against us, which means we are being monitored in these areas. Our problems are mainly to do with two large categories: waste and pollution.



    Romania is already facing a trial at the Court of Justice of the EU over its non-compliant waste deposits, and risks being penalised.