Analysis: The obligation to collect textiles took Romania “by surprise”
Since the beginning of this year, the separate collection of used textiles has become mandatory at the EU level, including in Romania, but our country is far from having an infrastructure ready to raise the level of collection, which today is far behind the countries in west.
Analysis: The obligation to collect textiles took Romania “by surprise”
In many localities, especially in rural areas, it is still being discussed how this collection will be carried out, while in larger cities, people are not at all motivated to selectively collect the clothes they can no longer use because they do not they have collection points at hand, writes Ziarul Financiar.
“There are some localities that have started the separate collection long before the deadline established by law (January 1, 2025). Many others have not yet organized. Each locality collects textiles separately according to its own rules. There are no recommendations for signage, color code or types of containers to standardize the way of collection at the national level”, explains Mihail Tănase, communication specialist for the Recycling Map project.
He adds that textiles are collected in certain periods by some town halls, can be left in dedicated containers or can be taken to voluntary collection centers, together with other types of waste (from construction and demolition, bulky, vegetable, electrical equipment and electronics etc.)
The obligation to collect textiles has become mandatory since January 1, and the data from the Romanian Association for Textile Reuse and Recycling (ARETEX) show that Romanians collect 0.5-0.7 kg per person, compared to the average of Western countries, of up to 16 kg per person annually. Do we have the infrastructure to collect more?
ZF asked several sanitation companies in big cities how the collection activity was organized in the localities where they operate and tried to see if all the town halls have carried out this stage since last year.
“At the level of sector 2, two collection points were implemented through voluntary contribution, where the population can hand over the flow of textile waste. The points are equipped with containers for storage, from where SC Supercom SA takes this type of waste and transports it to the final authorized recycler”, says Radu Chirca, executive director of Supercom, a player on the market of public sanitation and waste management services, which deals, among other things, with sanitation in sector 2. The collection points are located in the Obor and Baicului areas, and the waste can only be handed in if it is sorted and only by the residents of the Sector 2.
Source: www.mediafax.ro
