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For more than half a century, the use of plastic in agriculture has given farmers opportunities for growing fruits and vegetables regardless of the season, and at the same time achieving better quality compared to open-field cultivation. The use of plastics, through various specific techniques, helps reduce the consumption of various resources such as water, energy, fertilizers or pesticides.We could say that without these plastics a significant amount of cultivated fruits and vegetables could not be harvested in early conditions and could not be preserved and conditioned in controlled parameters.Plastic is a very important material for economy but also in everyday life. The use of plastic in agriculture has increased from year to year, thus contributing to both the increase of agricultural production and the improvement of the quality of food.Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that are used for various purposes. In the plastic industry, are used raw materials, such as cellulose, coal, natural gas, salt and, of course, crude oil. Plastics are extremely versatile materials and are ideal for a wide range of applications for industry as well as for consumers.

Modern life has contributed both to the increase of living standards, to the increase of the comfort level and to the development of the society, but also to the increase of the amount of waste that end up suffocating the planet and threatening the existence of present and future generations. Among the solutions that are sought and that are included in various programs and policies, the concept of circular economy is one that is increasingly discussed when talking about the sustainable development of society. The circular economy implies a reduction of the natural resources consumed due to both recycling and their fair consumption. At the E.U. level the foundations have been laid for policies aimed at waste management to ensure the application of the principles of the circular economy.Considering the importance that the quantification of the indicators for implementing the circular economy have on the elaboration of more efficient policies, but also on the determination of the degree of implementation of this concept, in this paper we intend to analyze the evolution of these indicators in 2010-2019, in the European Union using a customized version of the DPSIR model. Their analysis led us to the conclusion that although important steps have been taken towards the transition to the circular economy, there are still many aspects that need to be improved in order to achieve the proposed objectives through European policies.

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