The world community is more and more concerned about environmental issues. They gather conferences, sign international agreements. Even schoolchildren do not stay away from this worldwide problem: they boycott classes, calling for attention to what is happening around. But to everyone’s regret, detailed information and data on the real scale of what is happening are limited. This information deprivation is characteristic of our country as well. In July 2019, ACT Kazakhstan conducted an environment survey among Almaty residents. The survey studied the involvement of residents in the problems and solutions to the environmental situation in the city.
42.3% of the respondents considered the environmental situation in Almaty as unfavorable. The others assessed it as follows:
- Very bad – 28.4%
- Favorable - 28.1%
- Don’t know – 1.2%
According to the survey, the responding Almaty residents treat air pollution from automobile exhaust (79.4%) as the most pressing environmental problem.
According to the city residents surveyed, TOP5 environmental problems include:
- Air pollution from automobile exhaust – 79.4%
- Household waste – 36.8%
- Air pollution from industrial exhaust – 28.9%
- Deforestation – 25.6%
- Water pollution with processed products of industrial enterprises – 14.2%
It is worth noting a difference in male and female views on the problem. Both men and women consider air pollution from automobile exhaust to be the main problem. However, men put in second place the air pollution from industrial exhaust (16.1%) while women mentioned the household waste (19.1%). Being asked about the activities they take part in to protect the environment, 24% of the respondents said they were taking no action. Most of the respondents (55.5%) said they always scrape together the litter left after having a picnic. TOP2 answer was, “I take no action since I don’t know what to do” (18.3%).
TOP5 activities in which Almaty residents take part in to protect the environment:
- I scrape together the litter left after having a picnic – 55.5%
- I sort the garbage – 17.3%
- I use public transport – 15%
- I try to avoid using plastic bags – 12.7%
- I try to buy as fewer plastic items as possible – 12.5%
The survey showed that women were more conscious about sorting and disposing of garbage. 7.5% of women in Almaty try to buy as fewer plastic items as possible vs. 5.7% of men; 4.3% of women by eco-products vs. 2.5% of men. However, men were more active in planting trees – 6.8% vs. 4.5% of women. During the survey, we asked the Almaty residents about their attitude to the use by some companies of recycled paper/cardboard for packaging.
In particular, we studied the attitude of the target audience to the statements:
- “The use of recycled raw materials for packaging is not acceptable for me as a consumer.”
- 53.7% of the respondents consider it acceptable
- 40.8% consider it unacceptable to use products packed in recycled materials
- “I respect the activities of the company that uses packaging from recycled materials.”
- 74.6% of the respondents agreed with this statement
- 17.7% of the respondents disagreed with this statement
- I would rather buy the products of the company that uses recycled materials for packaging
- 72.9% agreed with this statement
- 19.4% disagreed with this statement
The survey was conducted in July 2019 among the population of the city of Almaty on a sample representing the city population. The age and gender quotas corresponded to the data of the Statistical Committee MNE RK. The survey was conducted by the method of phone interviews. The sample included 402 respondents. The sampling error does not exceed 4.9%, CI = 95%. The use of survey materials is permitted with the obligatory mention of the author of the survey.
