Increasingly stronger phenomena resulting from climate change, which are to some extent also the effect of human economic activity, become a premise for finding ways to reduce the destructive role played by the broadly understood society on the scope of negative impacts for the entire biosphere.

In order to ensure the proper state of the environment, a number of actions are taken at the local, national, international and global level aimed at reducing the emission of pollutants, greenhouse gases, improving waste management, etc.

A definition used in official government documents says that products, materials and raw materials should remain in the economy as long as possible, and the generation of waste should be minimized as much as possible. This idea takes into account all stages of the product life cycle, starting from its design, through production, consumption, waste collection, to its management.

We are therefore talking about moving away from a linear economy based on the ‘take – produce – use – dispose’ principle. Waste was often treated as the last stage of the life cycle. In a circular economy, it is important that waste, if it is generated, is treated as secondary raw materials.

Read the shortcut version of the report in English.