Romania's waste crisis. After 17 years and billions of euros spent, the recycling rate remains the lowest in the EU

Bianca Felseghi

Senior Editor

Romania needed almost two decades to declare its integrated waste management systems functional. Even so, it remains the EU member state with the weakest recycling rate—just 12%, stagnant since 2010—according to a country report discussed by the European Commission in June 2025.

Of the 31 Integrated Waste Management Systems (CMID in Romanian) that were supposed to be implemented after 2007, five had to be phased—meaning they could not be completed within the original deadline and had to be moved across multiple EU budget exercises, from POS Mediu (2013–2017) to POIM (2014–2020) and later PDD (2021–2027).

In these cases, county administrations halted the projects, were forced to repay the funds (sometimes with penalties), then requested to restart the projects—but at costs far exceeding the initial estimates. After 17 years, there are still counties where IWMS projects are unfinished. One example is Galați, which, only through the Sustainable Development Programme due in 2027, is expected to finally establish a proper system for collecting, recycling, and processing municipal and county waste.

In other counties, even though projects have been formally closed and declared operational, waste still causes environmental problems. Cluj is one such example—the beneficiary of the longest IWMS project in Romania, started in 2011 and completed only in 2023. Cluj still struggles every summer with waves of foul-smelling air drifting over the city from its former landfill. The situation raises questions about the compliance and quality of the work carried out.

Timeline of Losses and Delays

In 2023, after several days of extreme heat, a wave of rotting waste odor engulfed the city of Cluj-Napoca. Public outrage and hundreds of complaints filed with the Environmental Guard triggered an inspection by commissioners, who found that the unbearable smell originated from the Integrated Waste Management Center, where piles of garbage had been left exposed under the sun without treatment and had begun to ferment.

Photo: Raul Ștef

Commissioners stated that „around one to two thousand tons” of untreated garbage had accumulated after the mechanical-biological treatment facilities broke down. The company managing the Center was fined 80,000 lei. Later, however, in 2024 and then again in 2025, following the same pattern after periods of very high temperatures, foul odors in Cluj-Napoca returned cyclically. This time, however, authorities blamed various agricultural activities said to have taken place on the outskirts of the city.

Initially, Cluj’s IWMS project was launched under the Sectoral Operational Programme for Environment (POS Mediu 2007–2013)—known as Phase I. This phase was supposed to include the construction of basic infrastructure: a new county landfill, a sorting station, a mechanical-biological treatment plant, and related transfer stations in the western, north-eastern, and southern parts of the county. The project’s initial estimated value was 254 million lei, 80% of which came from non-reimbursable EU funds.

In 2012, the Cluj County Council—the contracting authority for the funds—launched the works for the Integrated Waste Management Center. Delays began immediately after the contract was awarded, along with major issues regarding the chosen site.

Both contracts had been awarded to two sister companies owned by businessman Ioan Bene, who has since been convicted of corruption. Later, prosecutors—who also investigated and secured the imprisonment of then-Cluj County Council president Horia Uioreanu of the Liberal Party—explained in the criminal case file that one of Bene’s firms, the one building the CMID, began excavating earth from the Pata Rât hill without any expertise or authorization. Pata Rât had been the city’s landfill for 70 years and was supposed to be closed as part of the EU-funded project.

The excavated soil was transported to the nearby airport and used as filler for the runway extension. Over time, the illegal excavations destabilized the hill to such an extent that they triggered a massive landslide of the huge quantity of waste stored there. In 2017, like a domino effect, this led to a major ecological disaster that contaminated the Zăpodie stream with leachate and wastewater, which then polluted the Someșul Mic River.

At that time, the project had already been phased at the request of the beneficiary, the Cluj County Council. In 2015, Cluj had lost its POS Mediu funding. By then, the officially reported progress on the CMID works had reached approximately 70%.

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In addition, with the old landfill closed, the county began storing its collected waste on a temporary storage platform, but its authorized capacity was quickly exceeded. As a result, the county started transporting its waste to other IWMS facilities, in Alba Iulia and Satu Mare.

It took another seven years for the local authority, the Cluj County Council, to declare the project completed. Landslides at the CMID site required extensive additional work to stabilize the massive hill of waste accumulated over decades, followed by a redesign. Furthermore, contracts with the contractors for various parts of the IWMS were terminated multiple times, and tenders had to be relaunched.

Through Cluj County Council Decision No. 187/2016, a follow-up project was approved: „Phasing of the Integrated Waste Management System Project in Cluj County.” This second phase was financed through the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme 2014–2020, Priority Axis 3, and had a total value of over 362 million lei, of which only about 116 million lei were non-reimbursable.

The remaining unfinished works and related costs—about 50 million lei in lost eligible funds, as well as the portion of works declared ineligible after being reported late—had to be either covered from the local budget or reclassified as financing under the new POIM phase.

For the sums reimbursed under the Integrated Waste Management System in Cluj County project, the Cluj County Council appeared in the records of the Managing Authority for POS Mediu with total budgetary claims amounting to 19,574,768.93 lei (approximately €4.4 million). The amount owed to the state—due to its own failure to complete an EU-funded project—was ultimately recovered directly from the pockets of Cluj’s residents.

In Cluj, Costs Doubled Between Phases

In real terms, the total costs of Cluj’s IWMS increased by approximately 58% from Phase I to Phase II of the project.

Finally, in 2023, on the very last day of the year—December 31—the Cluj County Council announced the completion of the project „Phasing of the Integrated Waste Management System in Cluj County.” The project’s general objectives—equipping waste transfer stations, building access roads to those stations, constructing a waste sorting station within the Integrated Waste Management Center (CMID), building a mechanical-biological treatment plant at the CMID site, constructing an access road to the CMID, and closing and rehabilitating the six urban waste dumps in Cluj County (Câmpia Turzii, Dej, Gherla, Huedin, Pata Rât, and Turda)—took 12 years to accomplish.

In total, the project’s value reached over 306 million lei, of which only one-third was co-financed.

The Most Expensive CMID Projects in Romania

Romania continues to face challenges in waste management. Although the total amount of waste generated between 2010 and 2022 has decreased overall, the country still produces 303 kg of municipal waste per capita, while the landfill rate stands at 74%—even though by 2035, just ten years from now, that rate must be reduced to a maximum of 10%.

According to a working document attached to the 2025 Country Report of the European Commission, Romania is at risk of failing to meet even its 2025 municipal waste targets. In 2021, the recycling rate for plastic packaging was 32%, below the EU average.

The document notes that Romania’s pace of compliance is far too slow, and authorities are paying financial penalties. In December 2023, the European Court of Justice ordered Romania to pay €1.5 million for failing to comply with obligations set out in a 2018 ruling regarding its failure to stop waste disposal and close 68 unauthorized landfills.

By the time the Court noted Romania’s non-compliance, 11 years had already passed since the start of the integrated waste management system projects financed through the Sectoral Operational Programme for Environment 2007–2013.

Romania’s Failure in Waste Management

Over the years, Romania has repeatedly been the target of formal infringement procedures by the European Commission regarding waste management. In 2017, the European Commission took Romania to the EU Court of Justice for failing to adopt and revise its national waste management plan and waste prevention program, in line with the objectives of the Waste Framework Directive and the circular economy strategy.

Despite previous warnings from the Commission, Romanian authorities did not revise or update the national waste management plan and waste prevention program, according to a statement issued by the Commission on Thursday. This review should have taken place no later than 2013. The Commission launched the infringement procedure in September 2015 and sent Romania a reasoned opinion in May 2016, urging the authorities to swiftly adopt these essential tools required under EU waste legislation.

In July 2024, the Commission sent Romania another reasoned opinion for the incorrect implementation of Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill of waste and the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC). A reasoned opinion is the second stage of the infringement procedure and followed notifications sent to Bucharest as early as 2021.

The European Commission highlighted Romania’s failure to establish an integrated and adequate framework for waste treatment facilities, taking into account the best available techniques, and concluded that Romania lacks sufficient facility capacity for pre-landfill waste treatment, particularly for mixed municipal waste and biowaste.

Finally, in November 2023, the Commission announced the launch of an infringement procedure against Romania for failing to meet legally binding targets for the recycling and reuse of municipal waste set by a 2008 directive. The deadline for transposing those provisions into national legislation had expired in July 2020. Alongside Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, and Austria were also penalized.

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