From the editors

The main purpose of this article is to discuss the application of Article 26a of the Act of 14 December 2012 on Waste, which was added to this Act under the provisions of the Act of 19 July 2019 amending the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipals and certain other acts.
Administrative bodies have been struggling with the growing problem of illegal waste collection for several years. The vast majority of cases concern proceedings to dispose of waste illegally collected in so-called wild landfills and as a result of litter, and only a small percentage of proceedings are conducted by administrative bodies in connection with illegally collected waste as a result of business activity. The problems faced by administrative bodies resulted in the introduction by the legislator of Article 26a to the Act on Waste, under which administrative bodies were authorized to dispose of abandoned waste instead.
In the first part of the article the author discusses the content of the changes introduced to
the Act on Waste under the amendment from 2019, further discusses the details related to the
initiation of administrative proceedings under Article 26a of the Act on Waste. Next, the author
focuses on the discussion of legal remedies available to persons interested in initiating proceedings under mentioned above Article. At the very end, the problems that may arise in connection
with the application of Article 26a of the Act on Waste by administrative bodies are described.

In particular, two types of data are important for assessing the state of waste management in each Member State of the European Union — first, the amount of the waste generated per capita annually and waste recovery rate, second, the rate of waste disposal in accordance with the waste hierarchy. The latest available statistics on the amount of waste generated per capita are for 2018. While the European Union average is 492 kg of municipal waste produced per capita for 2018, the Slovak Republic’s waste production is slightly less than that, with an average of 414 kg of municipal waste produced per capita for 2018. On the other hand, Denmark with 766 kg of municipal waste produced per capita annually is at the bottom of the European Union ranking. The Czech Republic with 351 kg and Poland with 329 kg of municipal waste produced per capita on the average annually for the same period are in better position than Slovak Republic. Another important data for the evaluation of the state of municipal waste management is the rate of recovery of municipal waste, alternatively — the municipal waste recycling rate. Within this scope, the Slovak Republic performs considerably worse, both regarding the waste management objectives and in comparison with the European Union average, or in comparison with remaining Member States. While the average recycling rate of municipal waste in the European Union was 47.0% in 2018, the Slovak Republic recycled only 36.3% of municipal waste in 2018. The situation within this scope in the Czech Republic/Czechia (34.5%) and Poland (34.3%) were similar. Germany achieved the highest municipal waste recycling rate in 2018, up to 67.3%. Directly related to the rate of the municipal waste recovery is the high rate of waste disposal, especially in the form of landfill, which was in the Slovak Republic in 2018 amounted to 55.0%. Despite the high rate of landfill, we can speak of a reduction in the landfill rate of municipal waste compared to previous years. From the foregoing data of selected indicators of the average recycling rate of municipal waste, it can be deduced that the system of municipal waste management in the Slovak Republic is obviously flawed, in as much as municipal waste management lacks long-term management in accordance with the waste hierarchy. The said deficiency may result either from insufficient legislation pertaining to this area or failure in terms of its enforcement. 

According to art. 22 of the GMA mining and geological licences, depending on the kind and place of the activity, are granted by the minister in charge of the environment, the head of the poviat or the marshal of the voivodship. The grant of the licence always must be preceded by cooperation with the authorities determined in art. 23 (like the President of National Atomic Energy Agency, the head of the local community, authorities responsible for the water management etc.). Depending on the kind of the licence or place of the activity, the „cooperating authorities” are consulting the draft of the licence (opinion) or the draft has to be agreed with them. Unfortunately, in most situations the premises determining results of such cooperation are very unclear. The result of such cooperation may be controlled by the administrative court.

The subject of the considerations contained in the article is the analysis of the legal structure used in the Act of 9 June 2011 in relation to the ownership of minerals and in the Act of 20 July 2017 on Water Law in relation to waters. This analysis covered the determination of the subject
of ownership, right holders, the content of ownership and protection instruments of the owner. It showed a lot of significant shortcomings in legal regulation, especially that concerning water properties. This regulation is in fact incomplete, and, moreover, dispersed and devoid of a clearer idea.

The participation of motor vehicles in road incidents results in the necessity of their repair or decommissioning. Generally, these activities are preceded by a liquidation procedure conducted by the insurance company, which in its course may declare a vehicle so-called total loss. The economic unprofitability of repair is often not related to the classification of the vehicle as waste and its decommissioning. Defining the concept of total loss, the author considers its consequences on the recognition of a vehicle as waste in the context of its sale, damage repair, import and withdrawal from use in road traffic.

Despite the fact of moving gradually away from the traditional energy sources, and reducing the share of the energy from the coal-fired power stations in the energy production, extraction of minerals other than hard coal remains crucial for human existence. It is enough to mention natural gas, metal ores, metals, gypsum, sand, precious stones, or thermal waters. However, it is necessary to keep in mind that geology and nature do not recognise the national boundaries, which results in the fact that some mineral deposits can be divided between two or more state territories. This leads to the situation when they are subject to the varied legal regimes. There is also a possibility of them being located outside
the sovereignty or jurisdiction of any state. There are still under-researched topics connected with mining. The aim of this study is to define legal issues related to cross-border mining, the so-called shared natural resources, and to present solutions to problems identified respectively. The second step, after analysis of the terms natural resources and shared natural resources, will involve an analysis of the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources in rulings of international courts.

The deteriorating environmental situation on Earth has become over the last decades an almost general cause for concern. Many people around the world, united in environmental organisations express their concern because the Earth is our common home, and our health and well-being are dependent on it. At the same time methods of economic activities, intensification of production can lead to ecological catastrophe. Therefore, neglecting environmental issues in global and regional dimensions is unacceptable. Excessive consumption of natural resources, pollution of the atmosphere and water bodies, continuous generation of non-recyclable waste are problems that need not only general recognition, but also the adoption and implementation of effective programmes to prevent the relevant harmful effects. This is especially true of Ukraine in view of the Chornobyl nuclear plant disaster with its ramifications, but this area has not been investigated sufficiently. Unfortunately environmental pollution in Ukraine is one of the major causes of increased mortality. The world community has already implemented preventative and compensatory mechanisms that contribute to the partial restoration of the natural environment. This encourages economical use of natural resources and reduces the environmental impact of business activity. The most effective of these are the economic mechanisms that make environmentally hazardous industries switch to energy-efficient and non-waste or low-waste technologies. An important instrument of these mechanisms is ecological taxation, which is why each country creates its own environmental tax system, adapted to the specifics of economic processes. Moreover, ecological taxation is a critical tool for ensuring the country’s environmental security. Thus, the research of the ecological taxation system, its elements, efficiency of functioning has important scientific and practical value. The purpose of the study is to establish the role of the environmental taxation in ensuring the environmental security, based on the analysis of the current ecological taxation in Ukraine and the EU.
The aims of the article are to consider various aspects of environmental taxation in Ukraine and the EU; to make comparisons of the ecological taxes in Ukraine and in the EU countries; to assess the fiscal efficiency of environmental taxation; to suggest the ways to improve the environmental tax system in Ukraine in order to endure the environmental security taking into account the EU experience. The following reasoning methods were used in the research: analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison, generalisation and others.

Extraction of minerals is a subject of the Act of 9 June 2011 Geological and Mining Law as well as of the Act of 20 July 2017 Water Law. Author tries to compare and distinguish scopes of the both Acts, explaining meaning of crucial notions in the following order: mineral, deposit and extraction. He came to the conclusion that the Geological and Mining Law interferes with the Water Law only in the case when minerals constitute deposit located within surface waters. However, such a situation occurs rarely as a result of a human impact on waters, since pursuant to art. 6 item 1 point 19 of the Geological and Mining Law a mineral deposit is defined as a natural accumulation of minerals. 

The subject of the article is general issues related to the management waste of electrical and electronic equipment. In the article has been explained subjective observations of the current situation related to generating electro waste, including overall numerical data. Afterwards, the issues of electrical and electronic equipment waste status were explained and presented based on WEEE regulations functioning in the European Union and Poland. Then, the WEEE management system was not only described in national regulations, but also assessed, which ultimately led to results presented as ideas for the development of EEE regulation.