Sorting of Municipal Waste by Citizens in Slovakia

Abstract

The paper focuses on the sorting of municipal waste by citizens of the Slovak Republic. Waste represents one of the biggest environmental challenges today, which affects not only Slovakia, but the whole world. Household waste, or municipal waste, is considered a particularly problematic source of waste. Its amount increases from year to year. In 2020 alone, its amount in the European Union (EU) amounted to 505 kg per person, according to data available on Eurostat, while only 48 % of it was recycled. The Slovak Republic, as an EU member state, must align its waste management policy with EU goals. At the same time, waste management, which should be environmentally friendly and use secondary materials contained in waste, is one of the critical elements of EU environmental policy. Major part of municipal waste in some EU countries still ends up in landfills and Slovakia is no exception despite the fact waste sorting is mandatory there. Just smaller part of municipal waste is recycled. The paper examines influence of selected factors on sorting of municipal waste by citizens of the Slovak Republic. It determines whether gender, age, income, household size and sufficient information about where the sorted waste ends up have some influence on sorting of municipal waste by citizens of the Slovak Republic.