New Steps Towards Environmental Protection – Transforming Household Waste Into Fertilizer

1. General background

It is already notorious that upon accession to the European Union ("EU"), Romania has assumed a series of responsibilities, constantly evolving, in the spirit of the Community objectives. Among them, the one which lately has the strongest impact is represented by environmental protection and fight against global warming. Thus, a step in this direction was taken by Romania on August 20, 2020, when in the Official Gazette was published Law no. 181/2020 on the management of compostable non – hazardous waste ("Law 181/2020"), which will enter into force on February 20, 2021.

According to EU Directive no. 2018/851 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 30, 2018 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, among the obligations set for the Member States, are the separate collection of bio-waste¹ until 2023, as well as recycling of at least 55% of municipal waste until 2025, respectively 65% until 2035. However, at this moment,