Bogdan Tudorache

Romania will not reach its recycling target for 2020 and could enter into a costly infringement procedure, said Costel Alexe, interim Minister of the Environment, in the Circular 7 conference organized by Green Report.

Asked by energynomics.ro if there is a common strategy at inter-ministerial level regarding the development of energy cogeneration units, Alexe stated: “I would be very happy to increase the fraction of what we recycle that really goes to recycling and less to cement plants. Personally, I do not think that incinerators or cement factories burning these wastes are the solution. It is important to have more recyclable material, in the true sense of the word, and, if applicable, we have in Romania a cement industry as good as possible that could consume all this material.”

He mentioned that in Romania almost all the waste reaches the landfill and that he supports the future guarantee-deposit collection and recycling system, with the help of which Romania could reach its targets.

“We will go into infringement, this cost of penalties may be higher than investments … Nor did the control authorities do their job… almost intentionally they were undersized, underfunded,” said the Minister of the Environment.

He also blamed the lack of profile legislation and enforcement rules for some laws that would have allowed the recycling industry to develop. “We had several laws passed by the parliament pompously, which unfortunately have no enforcement norms.”