Romania’s deposit return scheme rapidly changed the country’s recycling habits after its launch in November 2023. During its first year, the system collected more than 3.5 billion beverage containers and redirected over 230,000 tonnes of material from landfill into recycling streams.
Public participation has been unusually strong for a new national programme. Survey figures cited by the scheme show that 98% of Romanians know about it, 90% have returned packaging at least once and six in ten participate regularly. By October 2024, the return rate had reached 84%.
The operational scale is equally notable. RetuRO SGR has established seven counting and sorting centres and created more than 800 jobs. If every eligible beverage seller joined the return network, Romania would have one collection point for roughly every 220 residents—far denser than many longer-running European schemes.
Sensoneo’s IT platform connects retailers, producers, logistics providers and recyclers across a network of as many as 90,000 stakeholders. Real-time data and transaction tracking are central to maintaining accurate deposits, material flows and reporting, showing that digital infrastructure can be as important as collection hardware in a national circular-economy programme.
