2.1. System characteristics and limits
Romania is a country in the South-Eastern part of Europe,
with a total surface of 238.391 km2 and a total population of
approximately 20 million people according to the statistics
of 2014. The population growth rate is negative for the
last decade, in 2014 this value being estimated at −0.29%
(http://www.indexmundi.com).
The country is a full member of the European Union from
2007, the year being the starting point of EU legal instruments
enforcements and accession to EU financial instruments.
The economic profile of the country in 2014, as stated by
the statistics (www.europa.eu) includes the industry (27.3%),
wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation and
food services (17.9%) and public administration, defence,
education, human health and social work activities (10.3%).
Administratively, the country is divided into 8 development
regions, 41 counties and the municipality Bucharest (the
capital). The urban area consists of 320 cities and the rural
area incorporates approximately 2900 villages.
The solid waste management system in Romania is
discussed considering 2 dimensions: a ten years timeline
(2004–2013) and the social, economic and environmental
context that give the complex image of this country in
terms of sustainability. The selected period reflects 3 distinct
stages of the country: the pre-accession years (2004–2006)
when Romania was a candidate to the EU membership;
the membership year (2007) when the country became a
full member of the EU correlated with the adoption of
the EU legislation in all areas and particularly the solid
waste management field; the following period, that can be
considered as the implementation period (2008–2013). In this
last period the legislation, policies, strategies and all the
instruments related to the solid waste management were
enforced (as it may be observed in Table 1).
2.2. Performance indicators
The performance indicators employed in this study are
organized in 4 tiers (Table 2), starting with the genera