Four in ten villagers admit they take out household garbage only on holidays

Most of the residents of Moldova (92.7%) know about the persistence of the environment-related problems in the country. However, 40% of the respondents of a survey confess that they take the garbage out of households only on holidays, Info-Prim Neo reports. The survey was carried out by the Chisinau branch of the Ecological Movement of Moldova. It covered a sample of 600 households from 21 villages. According to the survey, only half of the country’s residents transport the household waste to the village refuse dumps. The rest of the population throws it into the precipice, burn it or collect it in the yard. The villagers argue that they meet difficulties when disposing of the garbage as they do not have money or units of transport. Also, the villagers prefer that the mayors’ offices deal with garbage collection, consenting to the creation of household refuse collection services in villages. The respondents said that, in order to improve the situation regarding waste collection, the local authorities should set up authorized refuse dumps, create a sanitation service and fix reasonable taxes for this service. The people also say that those that throw the waste in unauthorized places polluting thus the environment should be more severely punished. 35% of the interviewed said they could pay 16-20 lei a month for a cubic meter of collected waste. Some said they would pay a tax of 30 to 50 lei. According to estimates, if the monthly waste collection tax was 20 lei per cubic meter of refuse, a village with a population of 3,000 would allocate 720,000 lei for sanitation a year. Representatives of the local administration consider that such a solution is not effective as the 720,000 lei collected yearly from the villagers would not be enough to cover the transportation, storing and remuneration costs.