KeysFin: Recycling Business in Romania Might Generate Millions in 2022

The turnover of Romanian recycling enterprises grew by 2.2% in 2019 and was 43% higher than in 2016, with EUR 2.6 bln in 2020.

KeysFin, one of the leading providers of business information solutions, released a study that shows how profitable the recycling business could be in 2022.

For 2021, we estimate the continuation of the growth trend that started in 2016 and exceeding the lei 13 billion level. In the medium term, we expect an accentuation of the growth trend pending on successfully accessing and implementing the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), based on the substantial concentration of milestones around environmental indicators.

Tudor Malearov, Business Development Manager KeysFin

Bucharest, Romania’s capital, leads the country’s regions with a turnover of RON 2.7 billion (21.6% of the total), followed by the Ilfov county (7.4%), Brasov (6.8%), Arad (6%), and Galati (5,1%). In 2020, the top five counties accounted for 47% of total revenue earned by local recycling companies.

According to KeysFin, the number of recycling companies that reported their annual results climbed by 1.7% in 2019 and was 2.6% higher than in 2016, to 3,500 companies in 2020. At the same time, the number of bankruptcies fell by 7.8% in 2020 compared to 2019 and by 34% compared to 2016, to 59 in 2020.

On average, an European citizen generated the equivalent of about 7 tonnes of waste in 2018, according to the latest data from Eurostat. Romania ranked 6th, with the equivalent of 11.5 tonnes per capita, but of these, Romania recorded the largest share of mineral waste in the European Union: 90.3% of total waste generated. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan represents an opportunity to re-technologize the mining and extraction activities to make production more efficient: increased performance with a lower environmental footprint.

KeysFin analysts

The recycling industry’s net result (net profit minus net loss) climbed by 38% in 2020 compared to 2019 and was 95% higher than in 2016, reaching a new high of EUR 151 million In 2020, 1,970 of the 3,500 enterprises studied had a profit (56%), 1,100 lost money (31%), and the rest had no profit.

More than half of Europe’s garbage (54.6%) was recovered by recycling (37.9%), filling operations (10.7%), or energy recovery (6%). The majority of the waste, or 38.4% of the total, was put in the remaining 45.4%.