Romania’s environment chief says that the capital dumps 90% of its waste in landfills as it is failing to sort household and other waste.

Octavian Berceanu, who heads the Environment Guard, said Bucharest compared unfavorably to other European cities which on average send only a fifth of municipal garbage to landfills, he said.

Recycling

The chronic lack of recycling  of household and other waste is making the situation worse, he said.

Romania has one of the lowest recycling rates in the European Union.  „We don’t have enough sorters”, he told Digi 24 on Tuesday, News.ro reported.

„Another problem is that we don’t sort household waste”, he said. He said a waste management strategy was needed in the capital of more than two million people. The first district was the worst offender for garbage, he said.

Waste

“In the first district of the Romanian capital, we found piles, cubic meters of construction or office waste which are left near electricity pylons or just on the street. „I asked the cleaners what is going on? ”

„The cleaner responded: we have 37,000 companies that are operating in the first district, and 5,000 have contracts with the town hall and 32,000 dump garbage anywhere”.

In 2018, Romania’s overall recycling rate was reported to be at about 14%. Austria recycles about 63% and Belgium, 58%.

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