Since March 19th 2011, after resuming the “Waste doesn’t belong at home. Take it for a hike!” campaign, over 270,000 kg of WEEE has been collected in 28 counties. Thus, in just three months of 2011, the collected WEEE exceeded the quantity collected under the campaign that ran for the entire year of 2010.
In the month of May alone, approximately 400 volunteers joined the campaign in 16 counties and over 60 localities, collecting no less than 85,664 kg of waste electrical and electronic equipment. This is only the outcome for May, resulting from the actions taken by the Romanian Association for Recycling RoRec, together with the partnering town-halls and the RoRec member companies that support waste electrical and electronic equipment collection. Alba, Bacau, Botosani, Braila, Buzau, Calarasi, Galati, Giurgiu, Ilfov, Mures, Prahova, Teleorman, Timis, Sibiu, Salaj and Valcea are the 16 counties, with over 230 localities where the Romanian Association for Recycling RoRec organized WEEE collection actions this year.
Initiated in 2010, the “Waste doesn’t belong at home. Take it for a hike!” campaign is intended to help people who want to throw away old or defective electrical equipment and do not know where to take it or what to do. The results reported right after its launch confirmed the need for such an initiative.
At the end of last year, the “Waste doesn’t belong at home. Take it for a hike!” campaign reported the collection of over 244 tons of WEEE, namely approximately 19,000 appliances gathered from over 200 localities in 14 counties where more than 11,500 citizens participated alongside RoRec. Besides the local authorities, the business environment and the civil society, the RoRec Association plans to involve more and more participants in the WEEE recycling activities this year as well.
“The need to foster WEEE collection prompted us to launch this campaign last year. The 2010 results, the involvement of the local authorities and the citizens’ feedback confirmed that this service we provide together with the town-halls for people who want to dispose of the old or defective equipment is truly helpful. The first 2011 results inspire us to move ahead at full speed. It is obvious that we, Romanians, are willing to protect the environment and feel the need of having systems in place for the correct collection of waste electrical and electronic equipment that can help recycle them in accordance with the European standards”, stated Andreea Idriceanu, communication manager of the RoRec Association.
The collection actions organized by RoRec continue in July as well. After Buzau, Giurgiu, Satu Mare and Sibiu, counties where the “Waste doesn’t belong at home. Take it for a hike!” stopped on the first weekend of this month, other counties follow and the RoRec Association is expecting their inhabitants to act responsibly and take action for a cleaner community.
Find the schedule of every campaign, the locations and details of every action weekly on www.rorec.ro.