Monday, May 25, 2026, 1:46 p.m
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10 billion recycled packaging through RetuRo. PHOTO Facebook/RetuRO SGR
RetuRO, the administrator of the Guarantee-Return System, announced that the threshold of 10 billion SGR packages collected since the launch of the system has been reached.
“To understand more easily the scale of this amount, the collected packaging can be compared with easy-to-understand benchmarks. Put together, they could circle the Earth 50 times or cover five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. In terms of volume, they could fill three times the Palace of the Parliament, and placed next to each other, they would cover the entire surface of the city of Iași, half of Bucharest or form a neighborhood with 700 four-story blocks”, it is stated in a communique of the RetuRO administrator.
In the two and a half years since its launch, RetuRO has delivered to recyclers more than 700,000 tons of materials – PET, aluminum and glass – of high quality, which directly supply the profile industry in Romania. As a term of comparison, this quantity is equivalent to the mass of 15 ships the size of the Titanic or to a convoy of 30,000 TIRs on the road Bucharest – Cluj-Napoca.
With a collection rate of 85% in 2026, the Guarantee-Return System continues to support Romania’s transition to a circular economy, mobilizing millions of Romanians to adopt a responsible behavior towards the environment, the release states.
RetuRO Sistem Garanție Returnare SA (www.returosgr.ro) is a company that operates on the not for profit principle – which means that any profit made by the company following the collection of beverage packaging will be reinvested, exclusively, in the development of SGR. The company was created by a consortium of three private shareholders: the Association of Romanian Brewers for the Environment (30%), the Association of Soft Drink Producers for Sustainability (30%) and the Association of Retailers for the Environment (20%) and a public shareholder, the Romanian state, through the central environmental authority, the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Forests (20%).
RetuRO, the administrator of the SGR, operates exclusively with private funding and has the role of ensuring transparency on the quantities of beverage packaging placed on the market and returned by consumers.
