Air pollution and landfills are top Russian environmental concerns.
MOSCOW, February 6, 2019. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the results of a study devoted to ecology.
Twenty-three percent of Russians have noticed improvements in ecological situation (assessing the situation in their city/location over the recent 5 years); 31% report deterioration. Today respondents tend to put the blame for the ecological situation on local (30%) and regional (23%) authorities. The share of those who blame people themselves is also high. Only 7% place responsibility on the federal bodies. The efforts of these bodies to tackle environmental issues are assessed ambiguously: 36% see certain results, though insufficient; 33% say there are no results.
The major environmental issues involve air pollution (22%), landfills (16%), pollution of rivers and lakes (13%), untimely garbage collection (11%), tap water poor quality and lack of greenery expansion in forests and parks (6%, each). At the same time, 21% of all respondents believe that there are no environmental problems of high priority today.
Seventy-four percent of respondents have heard of the “garbage reform”, however only 24% are well aware of it. According to Russians, the reform primarily consists in developing waste management systems (27%), raising the tariff rates (19%) and creating a Single Regional Operator (7%). More than half of Russians (58%) are satisfied with the situation in household waste recovery. They are opposed by 38% of respondents.
VCIOM-Sputnik survey was conducted on January 15, 2019. The survey involved 1,600 Russians aged 18 and over. The survey was telephone-based and was carried out using stratified dual-frame random sample based on a complete list of landline and mobile phone numbers operating in Russia. The data were weighted according to selection probability and social and demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.2%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.
The 2009, 2010 results are based on household surveys.
2009 | 2010 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
It has improved | 10 | 10 | 24 | 25 | 23 |
No changes | 43 | 43 | 39 | 44 | 44 |
It has deteriorated | 41 | 43 | 35 | 27 | 31 |
Don’t know | 6 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 |
2010 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
Local authorities(city’s, district’s ) | 23 | 25 | 29 | 30 |
Regional authorities (governor, head of administration or region) | 14 | 23 | 25 | 23 |
People themselves | 12 | 25 | 20 | 21 |
Special government bodies (Ministry of Nature, environmental police, Emercom, etc.) | 17 | 8 | 10 | 8 |
Federal bodies, government in general | 27 | 10 | 7 | 7 |
Non-profit organizations including environmental organizations | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
Enterprises | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
Don’t know | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
Total respondents | Moscow and St Petersburg | Million cities | 500-950,000 inhabitants | 100–500,000 inhabitants | <100,000 | Rural area | |
The bodies do a lot to tackle the issues | 10 | 13 | 7 | 6 | 9 | 9 | 12 |
There are some results but they are insufficient | 36 | 32 | 47 | 37 | 42 | 29 | 34 |
There are no visible results; everything stays the same | 33 | 30 | 25 | 31 | 30 | 39 | 33 |
The situation is even getting worse; problems are exacerbating | 15 | 16 | 14 | 18 | 11 | 17 | 15 |
Don’t know | 6 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
Total respondents | |
Air pollution | 22 |
Landfills, garbage recycling | 15 |
Pollution of rivers, lakes, shores | 13 |
Too much garbage/no one collects waste; untimely collection | 11 |
Not enough green space; lack of greenery, parks, forests | 6 |
Poor quality of tap water | 6 |
Other | 13 |
No environmental problems | 21 |
Don’t know | 15 |
Total respondents | |
I am well aware of it | 24 |
I heard something but I do not know any details | 50 |
I have never heard of it until now | 26 |
% of those who know or have heard of the “garbage reform” | |
Positive and relatively neutral statements | |
Waste sorting | 27 |
Establishment of “Single Regional Operator” | 7 |
Construction of waste recycling plants | 4 |
Waste management | 4 |
Waste recycling | 4 |
Organization of waste collection | 3 |
Waste transportation to landfill sites | 3 |
Environment protection | 1 |
Elimination of illegal dumps | 1 |
Negative statements | |
Tariff rise | 19 |
Nothing will change/a reform not well thought through | 1 |
Another corruption scheme | 1 |
Other | 1 |
Don’t know | 17 |
Total respondents | Moscow and St Petersburg | Million cities | 500-950,000 inhabitants | 100–500,000 inhabitants | <100,000 | Rural area | |
Rather satisfied | 58 | 71 | 54 | 59 | 56 | 57 | 58 |
Rather dissatisfied | 38 | 28 | 40 | 39 | 41 | 40 | 38 |
Don’t know | 4 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!