The constant consumption of resources exerts pressure on the environment. In this sense, waste management has obtained increasing attention from the view of a circular economy. The European Union deals with these mentioned aspects, trying maintain long-term competitiveness and to provide sustainable development in accordance with all related environmental aspects. This paper focuses on the evaluation of the production of communal waste in 36 EU countries. The main aim is to evaluate the success of countries’ efforts to decrease waste production and increase recycling rates. The methodology used for the evaluation included data collected from the publicly available database Eurostat, consequent analyses and evaluation in the statistical software JMP 13 through regression, distribution, and cluster analysis, and the interpretation of the results. The results of the cluster analysis showed that despite clear EU waste management legislation, EU member states have significantly different waste management systems at the national level. However, generally, we could see positive correlation between the generation of waste and recycling rates. Although, Malta, Austria, Greece, and Norway recorded a decreasing level of waste recycling over the last several years, some countries (Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania) had significantly lower recycling rates accompanied by low landfill taxes. The evaluation of waste production and recycling can be used for government policy in the area of waste management, as well as for individual communities dealing with communal waste.

The financial health of a company can be seen as the ability to maintain a balance against changing conditions in the environment and at the same time in relation to everyone participating in the business. In the evaluation of financial health and prediction of financial problems of the companies, various indexes are used that can serve as input for expert estimation or creation of various models using, for example, multi-dimensional statistical methods. The practical application of the proper method for evaluation of financial health has been analysed in post-communist countries, since they have common historic experiences and economic interests. During the research we followed up the following indexes: Altman model, Taffler model, Springate model, and the index IN, based on multi-dimensional discrimination analysis. From the research results there is obvious a necessity to combine available methods in post-communist countries and at least to eliminate their disadvantages partially. Experiences from prediction models have proved their relatively high prediction ability, but only in perfect conditions, which cannot be affirmed in post-communist countries. The task remains to modify existing indexes to concrete situations and problems of the individual industries in the chosen countries, which have unique conditions for business making.

Shewhart control charts are suitable for stable but repetitive production processes used for the subsequent identification of random deviations while indicating breached quality limits. They provide information on process variability and, at the same time, make it possible to obtain information on the reliability of monitored processes. The objective of this paper is to assess the quality characteristics of plastic mouldings for the needs of the automotive industry with the application of the control charts method, specifically Shewhart control charts. The Shewhart control charts were applied to evaluate the quality characteristics, or, more specifically, to evaluate the measured width and length of the produced plastic mouldings by statistical analysis. Statistical analyses show that the set parameters are not met in the first two days of the test series. An improvement in the process is observed on the last day of the test series. The process is well set, as confirmed by our verification of the stability of the process. An important condition for setting the control charts is to observe the correct chronological arrangement and regular acquisition of measured values. Solving tasks in the future must be oriented to an evaluation of the capability of the production process of the monitored product. The proposal for future research will be oriented toward the evaluation of this capability via process capability indices that derive continuous data by using the classical method.

In the European Union, basic strategy results from the need to provide intelligent, sustainable, and inclusive growth, along with respect to social and economic impacts of waste treatment. The paper focuses on municipal waste and its separation. Generally, within global waste management initiatives, the main goal is to minimize the negative effects of waste on the environment, as well as to increase and optimize the sources’ efficiency in the waste economy. Research on municipal waste development and its separation was done in individual regions of Slovakia to find if socially weaker regions have worse waste treatment. The results were compared according to the waste development per inhabitant and per household, as well as through rate indexes, which are connected to relationships between waste, social, and economic indexes. The results confirmed research results from other countries that show that the volume of municipal waste is increasing due to increased living standards of inhabitants. However, on the other hand, waste separation rates also increased—mainly based on the legislative support.

In recent years, the mining industry has achieved an important position in the national economy due to its increasing productivity. However, since 2000, there have been signs of a slowdown, resulting from the national and local conditions of the mining industry. It is for these reasons that we have concluded that this type of industry must be assessed not only from the economic but also from the national and regional sectors, because the performance of the mining industry is directly affected by the value of mineral deposits and the structure of other industries. The present paper aims to analyze the development of the mining industry in Slovakia, in comparison with similar development in chosen European Union countries. Slovakia has been considered as a country with mineral resources and mineral-based products representing an important part of Slovakia’s foreign trade, with the significant imported mineral resources including mainly mineral fuels and ore raw materials. The development of the mining industry is assessed from the economics through the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) and through the national aspect through the rate of growth of the national economy. The aspects are evaluated by the multi-criteria method Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), with which we evaluated the country with the best mining industry development. The results of detailed quantitative analyses of the selected indicators for mining industry development for individual European Union countries show a fluctuating trend during the observed period, which is characterized by development disparities. Such results can be used to determine raw material policies in the relevant countries.