AHK Romania president: Romania's waste recycling rate just 14 pct

Romania has a lot to catch up with in terms of recycling, BASF Romania CEO and president of the Romanian - German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK Romania) Andreas Lier told a symposium on Wednesday, stressing that only 12 percent of the country's waste is reused, while the rest ends in landfills or is improperly disposed of, agerpres reports.

In terms of recycling, Romania has a lot to catch up with. Only 14 percent of municipal waste is recycled or composted, the rest ends up in landfills. A survey conducted by AHK in 2019 found that only 25 percent of households separate waste. Just 12 percent of waste is reused, the rest is dumped in landfills or is improperly disposed of. As we all know, this leads to air, water and soil pollution and affects the health and well-being of the citizens. Unfortunately, I can only confirm this. I have been living in Romania for two years, since taking over at BASF Romania. I have lived in Ukraine for seven years, as BASF CEO, and circular economy issues are highly similar, Andreas Lier said at the Recycling and Waste Management symposium organised today in Bucharest by AHK Romania.

He also remarked that "it's awful to ride your bike through the woods and come across waste that has not been properly disposed of".

This bottle in front of me, I have to throw it in the normal trash because there is no adequate waste separation system, he added.

In his opinion, there are lots of business opportunities for service and technology providers in this field.

With all this recovery need in Romania and in the context of the Green Deal, considering the strong money inflow to the country, waste disposal, recycling, and management become topics with a high development potential. There are many business opportunities for service and technology providers. Increasingly more cities want to play a pioneering role (...) We are glad to have experts, representatives of politics and of Romanian NGOs [involved]. Thus we have a wide range of infrastructure solutions, as we are looking at a more sustainable future for Romanian cities, Andreas Lier said.