Romanians not only consume, they also collect: the electronics they buy never leave the house again and the cars... well, that's another story. Let's just say Romanians keep buying cars, but no one rushes to take it to the scrap yard and buy another. It may be one of the reasons why all parking lots in Bucharest are taken, day and night. Still, with all the cars they have, Romanians not only find the time to drink a lot of beer, but also remain the people that spends the most time in the office in all Europe. Explain that!
"Romania - the country where electronic waste is kept as gewgaws", is the headline in Gandul. After 16 months of "green tax" imposed on electronics and electric households, Romania is far from collecting the 80,000 tons of waste it promised. In fact, it collected in 16 months the amount that should have been collected in one month. In 2007, the record was 2,000 tons in 8 months, Gandul found out. Meanwhile, the green tax supposed to finance the collecting added up to a total of some 80 million RON (1 euro = 3.6 RON).
One possible explanation is that Romanians may have been too busy to take their trash out: during the first six months of the year, the beer and cigarettes consumption reached 1.1 billion Euros. The next best selling products are chocolate tablets, coffee and non-carbonated drinks, same Gandul reads, quoting a study conducted by Nielsen.
Cars are another hobby of Romanians, who would buy almost anything. Some contradictory news come from Cotidianul and Evenimentul Zilei. The first newspaper, Cotidianul, found that luxury berlins are the average cars Romanians buy, when it comes to paying installments. Out of 144,988 imported cars, 40,548 were bought on the leasing market, the most wanted cars being those around 26,000 Euros. Thus, the leasing market grew 35% during the first quarter, compared to Q1 20
