INVESTIGATION OF PLASTIC WASTE WITH ENVIRONMENTAL KUZNETS HYPOTHESIS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

Plastics have become an indispensable part of modern life. Although plastics, which become waste after use, are recycled for the economy, they have become a critical problem because many cause environmental pollution and threaten life. It is known that the use of plastics has increased rapidly in parallel with the increase in income that has emerged from the increasing industrialization since the 1950s. According to the Environmental Kuznets Curve insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(EKC); hypothesis, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth. Considering the critical importance of the plastic waste problem, plastic waste should also be evaluated with the EKC approach. For this purpose, panel data analysis was applied to the plastic waste data of the European Union countries. Research findings show that the EKC validates plastic waste in EU countries from 2004 to 2019. This shows that environmental policies should be planned around the Plastic Waste EKC.