Pet Projects

Romania’s S.C. Romcarbon S.A. dates back to the 1950s and the planned economy that existed in that nation during the years the Iron Curtain separated Eastern Europe from Western Europe.

In the Communist era, the company manufactured plastic resins as well as auto filters and electrical and telecommunications wire and cable.

When 1989 and 1990 brought swift change to Romania, the company "took off toward the open business economy," it says on its Web site.

Twenty years later Romcarbon is now publicly traded and counts manufacturing of plastic film and bags; oil, air and fuel filters; and gas masks and military cartridges for the defense industry as some of its primary activities.

During this decade, Romcarbon has started several business subsidiaries focused on recycling and secondary raw materials.

As of 2008, according to Costache, GreenTech "is collecting and recycling 5,000 [metric] tons per month of all types of plastic, especially PET, and it is the biggest recycler of plastics in the southeast of Europe."

In 2006, another Romcarbon subsidiary called GreenFiber SA was created. This branch of Romcarbon’s recycling tree produces "polyester staple fibers out of recycled PET flakes," says Costache. "With its capacity of 4,500 [metric] tons per month of polyester fiber produced, GreenFiber has become No. 1 in Europe" in the polyester staple-length sector, he adds.

The subsidiary headed by Costache, GreenWEEE International SA, was created in 2007 and is benefitting from a generous investment by Romcarbon to prepare the company for a major role in handling Romania’s WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) scrap.

GreenWEEE operations commenced in February of 2009 with the opening of a 36,600-square-foot plant in Buzau, Romania. Romcarbon invested some ¤10 million ($13 million) to build and equip the plant, according to Costache.

The Buzau plant can process up to 50,000 metric tons per year of obsolete appliances and electronics, says Costache, including:

The significant investment was necessary, says Costache, for Romcarbon and GreenWEEE to meet Europe’s strict processing and handling standards for companies that promise to handle WEEE materials responsibly.

The activity is one of several initiatives keeping GreenWEEE and the Romcarbon group of companies busy. "Also, our group is now working to establish an Eco Industrial Park, the first of its kind in this part of Europe," says Costache. "In this park will be only factories related to environmental protection and recycling, with integration and by-products exchange. It will bring Romania to a new era of closed-loop recycling."

In taking on the complex and multi-faceted WEEE scrap stream, GreenWEEE will end up processing a full spectrum of metals, as well as glass and other materials derived from this stream.

Costache acknowledges, though, that access to the recyclable plastic will be a key focus, as that is what Romcarbon knows best. "The main purpose of involving ourselves in the WEEE recycling business was determined by the large quantities of plastics that WEEE contains, and the fact that we are specialists in this domain," he comments.

While collecting WEEE materials will provide access to new plastic sources, Costache says Romcarbon is entering the venture knowing that sorting and processing will take significant effort. "Currently, the plastics resulting out of WEEE recycling are very hard to be treated and to be re-used, as they are mixed and contain flame retardants," he says. "We intend to do a very good separation of it and to re-use it in the production of new finished products."

Costache says shredding (using two shredders made by Germany’s Untha Recyclingtechnik GmbH) will constitute an important part of the operation, though dismantling by hand "which ensures us a very good quality of the fractions obtained" also will be part of the company’s process. GreenWEEE will process monitors separately in a contained area of the facility and also will run a separate processing line for wire and cable.

As an overall company, Romcarbon SA employs some 2,000 people and operates in several cities in Romania as well as in the countries of Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine.

The company’s GreenWEEE subsidiary currently has just 35 employees, Costache says, "but we estimate to reach 100 in three years."

Additional employees will certainly be needed if GreenWEEE follows through on its plans to construct a second processing plant in western Romania to be opened in 2011.

GreenWEEE is not making its decisions in a vacuum, says Costache, and is keeping abreast of the wider economic circumstances.

"Currently, as everybody knows, the market conditions are difficult due to the global financial crises," he says. "The quantity of sold [electronics] has decreased, meaning that also the quantities of collected WEEE will decrease. Beside this, also the [plastics commodities] prices went down because of the decreasing demand, but we are confident that the situation will come back to a normal status.

"What is good is the fact we were ‘born’ in this gray period of the economy, and all our financial situations were adapted to the current conditions of the market and not to the one before the crises," Costache says of GreenWEEE.

Costache notes that a decision to allow for the cross-border flow of WEEE scrap within Europe could also prove to be a benefit for his company. "Currently, our country is not allowed to import WEEE materials," he comments. "We hope that soon we will be allowed to bring it from other European countries, because we are certain that our technology will allow us to do the correct treatment of WEEE and our treatment prices will be very competitive, especially for the hazardous items such as refrigerators."

For Romcarbon and its GreenWEEE subsidiary in particular, the construction of a second electronics recycling plant could the biggest single move on the horizon, and a move that is more likely to occur with the additional material flow that would come from cross-border trade.

The 28-year-old Costache has confidence in the company’s ability to process materials capably and to find end markets, but like many recyclers who have come before him, he is anxious to make sure material can be gathered. "I can say Romania still has a long way to reach to have very good collection systems, but we are working on this," he states. "Judging by the initial collection system we have developed in our group, we are positive that the collection will improve."

From there, Costache concludes, "What sets us apart from other recyclers in Southeast Europe is the state-of-the-art technology and our seriousness in treating the WEEE scrap in a correct and responsible way."