Circular economy and the waste management hierarchy: Friends or foes of sustainable economic growth? A critical appraisal illustrated by the case of the Republic of Croatia

The waste management hierarchy categorises waste management approaches into more and less desirable ones with waste preven-tion and material re-use and recycling being favoured over energy recovery and landfilling. Producing as little waste as possible by recycling and reducing waste makes intuitive sense and is an integral part of the paradigm of circular economy (CE), where material open- ends are closed through re-use and recycling