‘World’s largest’ centralized DRS launches in Romania

Romania is rolling out a centralized deposit return system (DRS) – said to be one of the world’s largest with almost 80,000 collection points – and seeks to increase collection and recycling rates for single-use beverage containers.

Drinks packaging made of plastic, glass, and metal in sizes between 0.1 and 3 litres are compatible with the scheme, which charges a deposit of 0.5 Romanian lei (the rough equivalent of €0.1) per container. It is mandatory for all legal entities that produce, import, or sell beverages in single-use containers to take part in the scheme.

As well as improving the purity of collected materials, increasing their circularity, and driving down CO2 emissions, the integrated system hopes to establish Romania as a world leader in DRS.

The scheme makes use of Sensoneo’s ready-to-integrate IT system, which is designed to be agnostic with any return vending machine and adaptable to suit individual countries’ requirements. It is set to bring stakeholders together and collect data from across the process chain.

In the preliminary phase, a market-mapping tool was provided by Sensoneo to register all entities and their beverages into the system, at which point digital data collection and analysis and automated digital contracting took place. Now the full DRS system features modules for all aspects of preparation, operation, and reporting.

Its main modules include a web portal for producers and retailers; registers for packaging and collection points; systems for enterprise resource planning (ERP), reporting, and document managing; interfaces with other systems, like RVM and counting and sorting centres; and mobile applications. These are designed to fulfil stakeholder obligations and meet specific requirements.