Efektywność wykorzystania zasobów naturalnych a stopień zapobiegania powstawaniu odpadów komunalnych w krajach Unii Europejskiej
Natural resource efficiency and the extent of municipal waste prevention in European Union countries

Summary/Abstract: Municipal waste prevention is the key objective of the European Union’s environmental policy, as it is believed to be the most effective way to improve the natural resource efficiency and to stop economic growth intensifying the generation municipal waste in member states. The main aim of this paper is to compare the efficiency of the use of natural resources in particular EU states and to investigate the strength and direction of the correlation between the former and the amount of the generated municipal waste. Moreover, the study assesses the strength of the relationship between the amount of the generated municipal waste and the economic growth of member states both at EU level and in groups of countries characterised by similar levels of resource efficiency. The study used statistical data from the Eurostat database for 2011–2020 and performed the cluster and correlation analyses. Five groups of countries, formed on the basis of their natural resources efficiency, were distinguished from the sample using the k-means method. The results showed that the higher the resource efficiency, the more municipal waste per capita is generated by a country, which is inconsistent with the assumptions of the EU policy. The correlation analysis found that the relationship between economic growth and the amount of the generated municipal waste exists (Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient for these two values has been positive since 2011 and has remained at a relatively high level). The strength of this correlation has not been weakened along the increase in the resource efficiency. The study additionally demonstrates that EU member states link the scale of the recycling activity to the amount of the generated municipal waste, which might pose to a serious threat to the EU target to minimise the amount of the generated municipal waste.

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