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In Sâncrăieni, Harghita County, a factory has been bottling mineral water since 1974. The same way for over 50 years: in glass bottles, reusable, returnable. For home and more recently, for HoReCa.
At Perla Harghitei, 15 million bottles per year are used in a closed circuit, mostly regionally, in nearby counties. What does this mean? The bottles put on the market return to the factory, are washed, and reused 30-35 times.
The factory also bottles water in PET, but the company does not want to give up glass bottles, which represent 25% of the business. Mihai Neagu, the company's CEO, says the main reason they don't want to give up glass is due to the company's structure. A family business now in its second generation, built on the idea of tradition.
"We preferred to maintain this line of business not for economic reasons, because it's quite a difficult and much less profitable business than the PET business, but it is a business with which we identify. And in which we continue to invest. This has ultimately brought us to have over 50% of the market for bottled mineral water in glass bottles. We are quite determined in this business, we continue to develop it in two directions," says Mihai Neagu.
The first development direction is technological. The company has invested 5.4 million euros in a water management station, which saves 5 million liters of water per year from waste. Especially thanks to the six tanks, each with 150 cubic meters. How waste is avoided is explained by Istvan Szabo, the operational director: "So we have a storage capacity of 900 cubic meters where we store mineral water ready for bottling. Their role is to allow us to operate our water sources continuously and at an optimal flow. At any stoppage - if, for example, for one reason or another, when we don't have an order or the warehouse is full - then we have to stop our bottling process, preparing the water for bottling. This means a waste of water, practically, because all the water we have from our source pipeline, we would practically lose. Because whenever you stop, then that water has to be aerated in the pipe, it will have different characteristics - so for food safety - we always empty the pipe at any start of production."
The second development direction is new distribution channels. In the HoReCa area, with returnable glass bottles. Through which restaurants send back the empty bottles to the factory, in crates, just as they came, instead of sending them for recycling. And a similar system is being developed for individual customers.
Mineral water from the Harghita springs is delivered directly to homes, in returnable glass bottles. A newer project of the company, but so far, promising. As the number of customers doubles year by year.
Thus, a seemingly less profitable bet on the circular economy proves to be ultimately a winning one.
The full story of how a company in Romania became more competitive also thanks to circular economy initiatives can be seen in the video report. Episode 11 of the campaign "Second Life. Circular Economy Models", initiated by Sustainable Solutions Association and financially supported by the environmental consultancy company Stratos, aiming to help the business environment transition from a linear to a circular business model, faster and easier.
You can watch the other 10 episodes here.
