from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
The growing scarcity of natural resources and increase of consumption have resulted in the adoption of an ambitious Circular Economy Package. It has to contribute to "closing the loop" of product life cycles through more recycling and greater re-use of waste generated through entire life cycle. Moving towards a more circular economy is becoming a crucial issue to pursue resource efficiency economy and underpin priorities related to the Europe 2020 strategy. Implementation of circular economy goals fits perfectly to the concept of reverse logistics aiming at ensuring that the products after use and any waste generated in product life cycle are recycled and reused if it is feasible. This means the necessity of modernizing waste policy and treating waste as a resource. In order to improve the benefits gained from better waste management, the European Commission has proposed municipal waste targets for a move to a recycling society. Therefore, this article analyzes the actions and goals that have been accomplished and planned in Poland in the aforementioned subject area. In particular, the reuse and recycling rates of municipal waste and the recycling rate for packaging waste, including specific materials, have been presented and discussed. The barriers that should be overcome for effective implementation of new required solutions have been also described.
Keywords: circular economy, municipal and packaging waste management, reverse logistics© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.