Where does the dirt come from?

Photo: ITAR-TASS

Every year of dust and dirt in Russian cities more and more. In summer, this is especially noticeable: the white shirt for dinner becomes black, the sole of the shoes instantly gets dirty, and the car after rain is covered with a pattern of dirty drops. PublicPost found out from experts where the dust came from in the city and why in Russia it is so dirty.

Cars and roads

In Moscow and large cities where there are no large industrial production, the main source of pollution is machine and roads. According to expert estimates, the total release of polluting substances into the atmosphere by road in 2011 amounted to more than 1 million tons. The soot that flies from exhaust pipes, and microparticles formed due to the friction of low-quality tires about poor-quality concrete, make up 90% of all polluting emissions from all sources.

Urbanozem

The second source of dust and mud in the city is a overdredeled, unintered soil, which rises into the air. Anthropogenic influences led to the fact that the urban land has long lost the chemical and physical structure of the soil and turned into Urbanozem. In some places, very contaminated. “If in Moscow, such soil was all covered without exceptions, the dirt would be much less. But the grass grows on wet soil. And we have neither soil nor moisture, ” says Elena Kornev, the scientific secretary of the NII of the city’s ecology. “ In Moscow, with such a small area, with such a small area, with such an amount of population , there can simply not be. Watering ".

Lack of comprehensive improvement

Dirt is not only drying dusting soil. In the monk, the problem lies in the absence of an integrated approach to the improvement of the city. Such land plots along the roads, since grass and shrubs cannot grow on them, it is necessary to pour with gravel or cover with special metal lattices, create artificial lawns, and form soil structures. But this needs additional money and qualified specialists.

In parallel, it is necessary to establish a system of urban irrigation. In Moscow, for example, it is expensive and invoice: they are watered mainly only in the parks - and that is not much. “We have few water resources. There is not enough water for watering. We have if we are watered, then from a drinking water supply, and watering should be from the technical,” says Elena Korneva.

Improvement and landscaping instead of qualified specialists - as is happening in Europe - non-professional hastarbait workers are often engaged in.

Cutting protective forests

Protective forests and green stripes around the city not only produce oxygen, but also take on a dusty blow, absorbing air dirt. Active deforestation of green spaces within the cities and around them leads to an increase in dust.

Enterprises and construction

Enterprises and construction sites located within the cities produce dust to a lesser extent and mainly locally. But they still throw pollutants. In Moscow, the excess of the level of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, formaldehyde, phenol, acetone, acetaldehyde, butylacetate, acetic acid, methane, etc. is periodically fixed. The largest air pollutant in Moscow is the oil refinery of Gazpromneft-Moscow OJSC. Muscovites also regularly complain about Cement-Service LLC.

As follows from the report on the state of the environment in the city of Moscow for 2011, which was prepared by the Department of Nature Management, the level of air pollution in Moscow is still assessed as increased. But officials are still choosing a strategy for containing the growth of indicators, and not a decrease. "Now, an attempt is being made again to develop an ecological program of the city of Moscow. This Department of Nature Management is engaged in this. And the program actually - according to a number of parameters - is signed that in Moscow we can no longer do anything, for example, with a change in the quality of atmospheric air," says Alexei Kiselev, head of the Greenpeace Russia toxic program. In his opinion, the situation is unprecedented - in any city you can improve the condition of atmospheric air, primarily due to a decrease in car exhausts. “We understand that people who buy cars in a huge quantity, they are voters. And on the other hand, those who understand that this is collapse. Why does the city do not take this group of people as agents of change? In Moscow, if nothing is done, also consume, as well as to dance, then after 3-5 years we will begin to observe a serious surge of diseases of all types. And in 10 years Moscow not at such a pace. He will stand it, ”he believes.

PublicPost asked the experts why it is so dirty in Russia

Oleg Bodrov, head of the Green World organization

"A case in a person’s mentality from a large country"

Russia is too large a country, too large, unlike Europe. We are used to, based on colossal wealth, not to appreciate the land on which we are. And this circumstance underlies the philosophy of a Russian person who can crap where he sits, in the hope of the fact that he will go to another place - and it will be clean there.

Unfortunately, the topic of purity and environmental safety is not in the first ten priorities of the Russian person, it is not perceived as a significant problem. The problem is not in urns and machines - the problem is in the brains. And I think that the Russian mentality formed in giant spaces is the basis.

Oleg Mitvol, Chairman of the Green Alliance party, former deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor

"Money to solve environmental problems is stolen"

There are a lot of reasons here. This is the lack of elementary education - it is not customary for us to consider the surrounding space to be our home, because no one will be particularly pigs at home, but on the street - with pleasure; These are enterprises whose owners earn in Russia, but prefer to live with families abroad; This is a corrupt system of cleaning territories - it is often not a matter of cleaning.

Money for solving environmental problems is allocated, but it is stolen. Unfortunately, we have more and more about corruption, but the authorities do little. I want to recall the situation in the Department of Nature Management of the Moscow Government, when they opened the case on the fact of a 100% embezzlement of funds allocated for the reconstruction of parks. After that, there was a search in the Department of Nature Management, and the former deputy head of the department - the owner of Spanish documents - solemnly left for Spain. And so no one was punished for this matter. Although 10 million allocated for the reconstruction of city parks and cleaning disappeared in an unknown direction.

Alexey Kiselev, head of the toxic program "Greenpeace Russia"

"The state scored on environmental problems"

Because in Russia there is no inevitability of punishment for violations of an environmental nature. Because the state, speaking of the folk language, scored on environmental problems. Any director of the plant knows: if you drain the tank of something very poisonous, in 99.99% of cases they will not even look for it. And if they find it, then this case will go to the court for many years, if at all.

If environmental legislation was now fully observed, then in our country everything would be much better. But officials do not need it. And this approach is everywhere - from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. In Russia, there is no region that could approach European purity standards.

It is necessary that the mayor of the city does not tell who goes to rallies incorrectly, but told that to litter is bad. Here is the mayor of London Boris Johnson is not shy about discussing these issues with his citizens, showing an example of a bicycle, showing an example of first aid and so on. I urge our mayors to follow this example.

Nikolai Rusakov, Academician of the RAMS, chief specialist of the Research Institute of Human Ecology and Environmental Hygiene

"The matter is non -blessed"

This is a difficult question, you can’t answer it definitely. We really sit in the mud. I think it's about education. In 1956, I came to Leningrad for the first time and stood at a tram stop. The man lit a cigarette and threw a match. So the people who stood at the bus stop forced him to raise him and throw him into the urn! Here is the principle that should be. And now the people are bad. And this bad manner continues with technologists of enterprises. So he threw a piece of paper, so he threws wastewater, emissions into the atmosphere and waste from his plant, because he does not have an understanding in his head that he cannot be contaminated.

I was an expert on the expansion of the Moscow Coca-Cola Moscow plant. And I say to the director of the factory: "Ugrozia! Your bottles are lying throughout the country." And he replies: "We are ready to put machine guns and give money for each bottle handed over. But there is nowhere to put it: they don’t take stores, but we are afraid, we are afraid."