| Abstract |
The currently preferred ways of industrialization of the society are unsustainable. Globalization has exhausted most of the available natural resources and it is therefore necessary to look for certain alternatives to the common principles and procedures of the industrial development. Circular economy provides us with a unique chance to harmonize the post-industrial societies with the nature again. Its essence lies in the growing need for positive changes, mostly in terms of our attitude towards the questions of environmental protection. The amount of people living on our planet is growing exponentially, along with the amount of waste, which disrupts the Earth ecosystem. People, especially the younger generations, perceive these environmental issues very sensitively; that is why most of them try to recycle as much waste as possible. However, given the severity of today's environmental problems on a global scale, we are still far from reaching any long-term solutions. The paper works with the basic assumption that circular economy is one of the pillars of the global environmental protection. The European Union representatives are well aware of this fact. The EU supports innovation processes, recycling and reuse of waste - after all, its financing program Horizon 2020 has been pushed in order to support innovations. One of the program main objectives is to effectively use the EU resources that result from recycling waste and, on the other hand, to preserve the remaining natural resources we possess. The aim of the paper is to offer an overview on positive and negative outcomes of globalization and to discuss the possibilities of reducing the environmental burdens thanks to circular economy. To fulfil this goal, we also have to summarize the legislation framework related to the given issues, at least partly. |