Impact of the level of economic development on the generation of plastic waste within the European Union

Abstract

In 2015, in New York City, the UN voted and adopted the so-called “Sustainable Development Agenda - 2030”, which includes 17 main goals, related to the trans-formation of the world and the achievement of “a better and more sustainable future for all.” These aims are focused on “global challenges”, faced by developed and developing countries alike. One of the main issues affected by the programme is environmental degradation. Today the challenge that all humanity stands before is how to reduce the negative impact that human beings have on the nature around us through our day-to-day activities. The main pollutant to be investigated is plastic – one of the principal compilers of the “World Waste Crisis”. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of the level of economic development on the generation of plastic waste within the European Union, measured by regression. Therefore, this paper investigates the statistical data of plastic waste generation in EU countries for the 2004-2016 period and the trends in gross national income per capita for all countries investigated. The results of this paper suggest that the impact of the level of economic development has direct influence on the purchasing power of society, and, hence, positive dependence between consumption growth, waste generation, and one of the world’s most widely used materials - plastics.