Eco-Rom Ambalaje Magazine No.11, February - April 2014 | Page 7

ecopractic
are an integral part of the new system
which must continue to develop, and
that is, circular economy. Even more so
given that on January 22, 2014, as part
of a proposed plan to transition to a society with lower GHG emissions, the European Commission proposed an objective
(yet non-mandatory for Member States)
to increase the weight of renewable energy to at least 27% of the European
Union’s total energy consumption by
2030, and to reduce domestic GHG
emissions by 40% compared to 1990.
The roadmap to the European Union’s
switch to a competitive economy with
low carbon emissions aims at reducing
GHG by 80%-95% compared to 1990
emission levels in the long run (by
2050), in order to maintain the global
warming phenomenon under 20C.
The 150-year old linear model of industrial evolution of production and consumption, in which the goods are
manufactured, sold, used and then discarded as waste, must be replaced with
the circular economy model, which is focused on securing natural resources (by

reuse/recycling), on creating new local
and regional employment opportunities,
on lowering GHG emissions and last but
not least, on a sustainable taxation system that can support all of the above.
We must be confident about this change
– in fact, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s report for 2012 specifies that the
implementation of circular economy may

bring European manufacturers over 630
billion dollars in savings per year until
2025, through a better design and more
efficient use of materials. The immediate
challenge for all sustainable businesses
is to identify the development and
growth models that have a low impact on
the environment, and circular economy
is precisely this kind of model.

legislation changes

new sanitation law requires clarifications
liliana nichita
operations manager
Although legislation changes are usually generated by market
evolutions, the field of waste management has undergone a series of significant changes at the end of 2013 and early 2014.
At the beginning of February, the Chamber of Deputies passed
a Law amending and completing the Law for urban sanitation services no. 101/2006. This change triggered a lot of debate, starting first of all from the territorial exclusivity granted to
sanitation operators, but also because of the fact sanitation
contracts can be signed for periods of up to 35 years.
In the absence of additional clarifications as to how this legal
provision should be interpreted and enforced, we will witness a
crisis on the waste collection market, especially in what regards the industrial and commercial generated packaging
waste.
The waste generated by a company should be managed by this
company via service agreements with authorized collectors. In
this direction, we believe that making it mandatory to entrust
this kind of waste to sanitation operators is a misinterpretation
of the law, as those who generate the waste still have the right
to hand over the packaging waste to authorized collectors.
Another important novelty is the fact local authorities are now
considered owners of municipal waste. Thus, the removal of
waste generated by the population and stored in separate collection containers is now considered an offence.
This provision is more than welcome, given that theft from collection containers had reached alarming rates over the last
few years.

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