STUDY REGARDING WASTE MANAGEMENT IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to emphasise the waste management possibilities in Romania, so as to reduce as much as possible its impact on the environment. Waste consists of materials resulting from human, animal husbandry, agricultural and industrial activities that have negative effects on the health of people and of the environment. The purpose of waste management is to save natural resources, maximise the conservation of non-renewable resources and neutralise the negative effects on the environment. Waste, regardless of its source, is actual damage to the environment. The largest part of this waste is solid. Its efficient management, according to the sustainable development principle, is essential to preventing and limiting as much of the negative impact on the environment as possible. In order to achieve an efficient waste management, it is recommended to use clean technologies in generating activities, so as to prevent waste production and to decrease the amount of waste. Another possibility is to capitalise on them by means of re-use, recycling and recovery. Only if there are no such possibilities, we move to storing and incinerating waste. This research was based on statistical indicators related to waste, namely: the amount of municipal waste generated per capita and as country total, the manure recycling rate, the amount of packaging waste (paper, glass, plastic) and the amount of waste recovered from packaging materials, as published by Eurostat. We performed a dynamic analysis of the above-mentioned indicators, and the data covered the interval 2004-2012. Considering that the long-term objective of the EU policies regarding waste management is to decrease the amount of waste that is generated, we may notice that, based on the results, this downward trend was recorded both at EU-27 level, and in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. In Romania there was also a low rate of waste collection. The low collection rate is due to the fact that, to a large extent, mixed waste is collected, selective collection being quite low. The recycling rate is very low, of only 2.6% in 2012 as compared to Poland where it reached 19.6% and Bulgaria where it reached 25%. Analysing the packaging waste (glass, paper, plastic) we notice a downward trend in Romania until 2011, followed by an increase in 2012. In terms of processing waste by incineration in Romania, to obtain electrical and thermal energy, this is still at a theoretical stage.