The right to breathe clean air. Simbirsk Courier. People have the right to breathe. Passive smoking and respiratory diseases
- 10. 03. 2018
On March 10, a rally was held in the village of Yadrovo, Volokolamsk district, Moscow region. Residents of Volokolamsk and the surrounding villages demanded to close the landfill, where garbage is taken from all over the Moscow region. For the first time in two years, federal television cameras filmed the protests, and federal politician Ksenia Sobchak came here. The police did nothing to stop the protesters. The police also live in Volokolamsk and breathe this stench
Gavrilov ate Mamon
Andrei drills artesian wells in the Volokolamsk region and digs wells. But in Yadrovo he does not drill wells. He says he has children. That it is a sin - to poison people with water flowing from the Yadrovka landfill - he will not take to his soul.
Aunt Lena lives at the church in the village of Amelfino, about ten kilometers from Yadrov. She says that the head of the Volokolamsk region, Yevgeny Gavrilov, was a good person, but Mamona ate him. According to Volokolamsk Mayor Pyotr Lazarev, the company that owns the landfill LLC Yadrovo is not local. 25% of the company belongs to the administration of the Volokolamsky district, and the remaining 75% - to some people from Moscow. Therefore, the mayor takes part in protest pickets every day along with the residents, and Aunt Lena posted a notice about the rally on the church bulletin board, next to the message that the next service in the church would not be until Easter.
Dmitry is retired. Lives on the outskirts of Volokolamsk in a private house. A month ago, when a large emission of stinking gases occurred at the landfill, Dmitry's dog howled, rushed out of the pen and tried to run wherever his eyes looked.
These people unite spontaneously, sign off on social networks, put up ads at bus stops, write on city forums. On March 3, they managed to gather a rally of five thousand people on the square in front of the administration of Volokolamsk. They demanded that the landfill be closed immediately. But the head of the administration, Gavrilov, did not come out to them. “The head never showed out of the pants,” pensioner Dmitry described the reaction of the authorities in this way.
Before the protests began, at least 400 garbage trucks a day went to the landfill. When the protests began, the number of cars dropped, but still, at least 100 cars throw garbage at the landfill every day.
Participants in a protest at the Yadrovo solid waste landfill in the Volokolamsk district. Activists demand to close the landfill and oppose the construction of waste processing and incineration plantsPhoto: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS
Activist Irina, who actually works as a cook, claims that garbage trucks that failed to get past the picket to the landfill dump their garbage nearby, in the Sychevsky quarries. The snow will fall and we will see.
Tongueless protest
The line of cars that brought people to Yadrovo stretches for about five kilometers on both sides of the Volokolamsk Highway. There are at least two thousand cars. There are two or three people in each car. This means that the March 10 rally is at least five thousand strong. A huge figure for Volokolamsk.
A rally was organized with the participation of the campaign headquarters of Ksenia Sobchak. The organization is that they drove a truck with an open body to serve as a stage. The microphone and two speakers work. Figures of Panfilov's heroes, who, according to legend, died very close by, are cut out of cardboard. They rise above the crowd - in the sense that the heroes did not die defending their homeland to rest now under a garbage heap the size of a nine-story building.
Ksenia Sobchak is late. She'll be forty minutes late, like Putin. The organizers explain from the back of the truck that Ksenia Anatolyevna, they say, was deliberately detained by traffic cops, but the crowd does not really believe this. Traffic cops here are friends, neighbors. With them, activists, dressed in chemical protection suits, smoke peacefully, and traffic cops nod with understanding: “I’m suffocating at home.”
Meanwhile, people are climbing into the back of the truck one by one and talking. They are not speakers or politicians. They speak badly. “I know all these places here, I’m a hunter, and when I saw the training ground above the age-old trees, I was stunned ...” “My granddaughters walk here, I skied here, and now you can’t breathe here.” And the little girl Tanya: “I go to school in a gas mask. I want everyone to breathe clean air. Close!”
The crowd cheers: "Shut up!"
One of the speakers turns out to be an anti-Semite and shouts that the company "LLC Yadrovo" "is owned by the Jews." Someone is pretty drunk and, trying to bow low to fellow countrymen for their active citizenship, almost falls out of the back. A representative of the Public Chamber near Moscow climbs onto the body, he is booed. He tries to report that they have already brought, they say, two devices to monitor the state of the air, that the state of the air is normal.
"Go away! shout from the crowd. - This man drives a Maserati! Don't listen to him! A shame!"
During a protest at the Yadrovo solid waste landfill in the Volokolamsk districtPhoto: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS
The crowd is especially angry that the representative of the Public Chamber confuses the stress in the word "Retribution". This is the name of the street on which the device that examines the air should stand. The emphasis should be on "O", and the speaker says "Retribution". And it is immediately clear - a stranger.
"Go away! Maserati! A shame!"
But mostly women, old people, teenagers speak. They have never been involved in politics. For the first time they shout from the stage that they have the right to breathe. And for the first time they shout: “Down with Gavrilov!” (head of the district), “Down with Vorobyov!” (Governor of the Moscow Region), “Down with Putin!” (President of the Russian Federation). “Vova! You took away our future, leave at least the air!
Almost before the arrival of Sobchak, the head of the city, Pyotr Lazarev, gets into the back of the truck. He is his. He is being listened to. He says it's not just the air. That the river Gorodnya flows right under the landfill. That when the snow melts, poisons from the landfill will flow along Gorodnya into the Lama River, along the Lama - into the Big Sister, along the Sister - into the Volga. And the ecological catastrophe will acquire a federal scale.
Lazarev reports that he has already written about the catastrophe threatening the entire Volga region to the governor and the presidential plenipotentiary. He is embarrassed to say this, because there is a poster above his head: "Sobchak for president." And he clarifies: "I support our President Putin, don't take him down."
The right to breathe
When Sobchak finally arrives, the rally takes the form of a rally. Xenia stands in the back of a truck and throws chased slogans into the crowd. "The right to breathe!" "They stole our air!" "Vorobiev resign!" "We are against everyone!"
She makes only one mistake, which almost spoils the whole impression of her speech. In the word "Yadrovo" she emphasizes "I", but it is necessary for "O" - Yadrovo. A murmur runs through the crowd - a stranger. But someone, apparently, tells Xenia, and she corrects herself. A mistake in stress is forgiven for her precise formulations.
Candidate for the post of President of the Russian Federation from the Civil Initiative party, TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak (foreground) during a protest near the Yadrovo solid waste landfill in the Volokolamsky districtPhoto: Sergey Fadeichev / TASS
“Well done, she’s great for them,” they whisper in the crowd. “I suppose they won’t reach Moscow, they’ll kill you on the way.”
Ksenia Sobchak returns to Moscow safely. Its minted slogans remain in the Volokolamsk region.
"They stole our air!"
"We have the right to breathe!"
Thank you for reading to the end!
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Everyone has the right to a favorable environment, reliable information about its condition and compensation for damage caused to his health or property by an environmental offense.
We have the right to express our opinion
Every citizen has the right
For a favorable environment, for its protection from negative impacts
...- send messages to the government... about obtaining timely, complete and reliable information about the state of the environment in their places of residence ...
- put forward proposals for public ecological expertise and participate in its implementation in the prescribed manner
- take part in meetings, rallies, demonstrations, processions and picketing, collecting signatures for petitions, referendums on environmental issues
- contact the government... with complaints, statements and proposals on issues related to environmental protection, negative impact on the environment, and receive timely and reasonable answers
- sue for environmental damages
You have to pay for pollution
Article 16. Payment for negative impact on the environment
1. Negative environmental impact is paid
...2. The types of negative impact on the environment include:
emissions of pollutants and other substances into the atmospheric air ...
3. The procedure for calculating and collecting fees for negative environmental impact is established by the Government of the Russian Federation
Damage caused to the environment and health must also be compensated.
Section 79. Compensation for Damage Caused to Health Law on Environmental Protection
1. Damage caused to the health and property of citizens by the negative impact of the environment as a result of economic and other activities of legal entities and individuals shall be subject to compensation in full.
Violators can be removed from work
Article 80
Claims for restriction, suspension or termination of the activities of legal entities and individuals carried out in violation of the legislation in the field of environmental protection are considered by a court or an arbitration court.
Monitoring should be organized to obtain information about the state of the air.
Article 63 Organization of state monitoring of the environment of the Law on Environmental Protection
1. State monitoring of the environment is carried out in order to ... monitor the state of the environment, including the state of the environment in areas where sources of anthropogenic impact are located and the impact of these sources on the environment, as well as in order to meet the needs of the state, legal and individuals in reliable information, necessary to prevent and (or) reduce the adverse effects of changes in the state of the environment.
There is social control and it must be taken into account
Article 68. Public control in the field of environmental protection (public environmental control) of the Law on Environmental Protection
1. Public control in the field of environmental protection is carried out in order to realize the right of everyone to a favorable environment and prevent violations of legislation in the field of environmental protection.
2. Public control in the field of environmental protection is carried out by public associations and other non-profit organizations in accordance with their charters, as well as citizens in accordance with the law.
3. The results of public control in the field of environmental protection, submitted to public authorities ... are subject to mandatory consideration in the manner prescribed by law.
Scientific research can influence the improvement of the law
Article 70. Scientific research in the field of environmental protection Law on environmental protection
2. Scientific research in the field of environmental protection is carried out in order to:
Assessment of the consequences of the negative impact of economic and other activities on the environment;
Improvement of legislation in the field of environmental protection, creation of regulations, state standards and other regulatory documents in the field of environmental protection;
Development and improvement of indicators of a comprehensive environmental impact assessment, methods and methods for their determination;
A good selection of regulations on environmental topics
Clean air is absolutely essential for a healthy human life. At the same time, the vast majority of the world's population lives in places with poor air quality, which in 2012 alone led to approximately 6.5 million deaths. With population growth, economic growth and the onset of urbanization, there is a possibility of a significant aggravation of this problem.
Even in relatively wealthy Europe, air pollution continues to cause significant damage to human health, causing 400,000 premature deaths each year. With air quality falling short of legal standards in most European Union countries, people and environmental organizations are increasingly being taken to the courts to demand action to improve air quality.
The root cause of our problems is a lack of political will, a symptom of a legal and political system that prioritizes private profit over public health.
ClientEarth is at the center of this movement. Building on the landmark 2014 European Court of Justice ruling that enshrined the citizen's right to clean air in European Union law, ClientEarth is working with partners across Europe to advance cases to national courts. The adjudication of these court cases inspires action in the field of human health protection, while at the same time significantly supporting efforts to prevent climate change.
In Germany, in order to achieve air quality standards, courts have ordered regional authorities to consider banning the use of diesel fuel in city centres. The courts in Poland, in order to combat winter smog, in which the content of particulate matter exceeds the legal norms, upheld the ban on burning solid fuels in Krakow. The ban will come into effect in 2019.
©: NOMADPollution knows no bounds
All of this is unambiguously positive news for the health of Europeans. However, albeit harmful and substandard, the air in European cities is significantly better than in developing countries. While Krakow may well claim to be the most polluted city in Europe, it doesn't even come close to being in the top 100 most polluted cities in the world - cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East unquestionably lead the list.
Even if we export our pollution, it may still threaten us again in the future.
Steps taken in Europe to clean up the air may even worsen the situation with air pollution in other regions. Just as the tobacco industry is acquiring new smokers in Asia and Africa to replace former Western smokers, the European auto industry will be looking for new markets for diesel cars that are no longer welcome on European roads. If Europe solves its air quality problems by exporting them to other regions, any positive health effects will go hand in hand with negative effects in the developing world.
Air pollution knows no boundaries. Pollution can spread thousands of miles, as we sometimes see in the UK when sand and dust lifted from the Sahara mixes with local air pollutants, turning skies and air pollution indices an alarming red. Toxic ozone and the urban and industrial pollutants that form it can also be transported over great distances – we must act to reduce precursor gases. In short, even if we export our pollution, it could still threaten us again in the future.
Right to clean air
Air pollution is one of the biggest global environmental and health problems, and as such, combating it requires global action. The root cause of the problem is a lack of political will, a symptom of a legal and political order that puts private interests ahead of public health. Therefore, part of the global response to this problem should be a regulatory framework that grants the right to breathe clean air. It should be everyone's right. Enshrined in law, and supported by the courts.
The properties and sources of air pollution are composed of many varying components, and hence the solution to this problem. However, from a legal point of view, there are universal principles that can and should be applied everywhere.
The first principle is the existence of legal standards. In order to breathe clean air, people must be protected by clear and binding legal standards. This ensures that politicians are held accountable for protecting human health and that empty promises do not give way to political gain.
In order to breathe clean air, people must be protected by clear and binding legal standards.
The second principle is the validity of standards. These standards should be based on the best scientific evidence available on the harmful effects of air pollution. In the absence of data on any threshold effects - i.e. the level at which the air does not pose a risk to human health - the lower the level of pollution we can achieve, the better. The recommendations of the World Health Organization are often used as a template, but can be criticized as not entirely objective and sometimes unrealistic, especially for cities in developing countries. When fine particulate matter reaches 700 micrograms per cubic meter, as in Delhi and Beijing in recent years, recommendations of 10 micrograms per cubic meter seem like an unattainable dream.
The levels recommended by the World Health Organization are good as a long-term goal, and what is needed is a strong legal obligation to reduce the levels of human exposure to pollution annually, in measurable and understandable terms.
The third principle is compliance control. Legal standards are meaningless if they are not enforced. Strong, independent regulators are needed to monitor compliance by governments and the private sector. But regulators alone are not enough. Too often they fall prey to industrial takeover or political pressure—think of the failure of European regulators to deal with the Dieselgate scandal that has sprung up over allegations that Volkswagen deliberately bypassed emissions testing.
Citizens' rights
The solution to the problem is to make people the guardians of the air they breathe. In order to protect their right to breathe clean air, people must be armed with three procedural tools.
First, the right to access air quality information (ideally by providing real-time data from observing stations, supplemented by regular reports from reliable government or academic sources). A vivid example of the role of information is the publication on Twitter of data from the monitoring station of the US Embassy in Beijing.
Secondly, the right to participate in decision-making and the development of legislative directives relating to air quality, such as issuing industrial permits or formulating air quality plans.
And lastly, the right to apply to the courts for the enforcement of pollution laws, both in relation to the state and in relation to companies.
United Nations Environment Program partners in the campaign
Residents of the new city and the rest of the Volga region are ready for the most decisive actions in order to achieve the opportunity to simply breathe clean air - every calm day becomes a torment for people due to constant smog. Ulyanovsk residents on the left bank of the Volga wake up in the morning with a sore throat and a headache. Measurements show an excess of formaldehyde, but officials stubbornly attribute everything to some “unique” weather conditions.
- I don’t know how you breathe in the depths of the new city, in Apekseyevka above the fifth floor, windows to the south-south-west hurt your eyes, burning from the window.
- We breathe "through time." This is hell. Such dialogues in the group “Poisonous air. New City”, organized by activist Natalia Lazareva, has been a daily routine for the last month. People breathe burning, they are afraid to open the window, they try not to leave the house with their children in vain. The Right Bank also smelled a little, but for the inhabitants of the Leninsky district this was a single phenomenon. For New Yorkers - daily.
In the midst of problems with smog in mid-November, the authorities, citing meteorologists, reported that the situation in the atmosphere of a number of regions was such that all substances simply accumulate above the ground. In general, everything is in order, dear residents, you just got unlucky with the weather. Then the cyclone blew and seemed to cope with the smog. Officials exhale-1I - but not for long. Soon, the inhabitants of the Volga region again had nothing to breathe. Another aggravation occurred in the first days of December.
Did you breathe in the western wind and clean air near the Volga? Enough. Already from 17.00, even at the Volga, the window again pulled burning. The wind is changing from the west to the southwest, tomorrow they promise a day of southeast wind. We all know what that means. From the industrial zone and the Petrov ravine, it will reach everyone, ”Lazareva wrote on December 1 in her blog.
This time she has a lot of like-minded people - the whole new city.
But the Ministry of Nature of the Ulyanovsk region continues to insist that these are all such meteorological periods. On November 27, officials said, residents were "spooked by haze in the sky, which many have again linked to smog." In early December, the "synoptic" period was again announced.
— The third day in the territory of the Ulyanovsk region there is an anticyclone, which entails a weakening of the wind and a decrease in temperature, which, in turn, leads to stagnation in the lower layers of the atmosphere. This natural phenomenon is temporary, it is gradually receding to the east, and the situation will improve tonight, the Ministry of Natural Resources said.
Officials stressed that the situation is under control, and the inspectors are constantly "located in the industrial zone and carry out operational work." As an example, they also cited an inappropriate photograph from the countryside, where smoke from chimneys does not rise, but hangs over the village.
But the inhabitants of the Trans-Volga region rightly noted: why is there no thick suffocating "haze" in the Leninsky district, Zasviyazhye, Zheleznodorozhny region, but there is in the Trans-Volga region?
“We all have earned the right to breathe in any wind, and not be afraid of the east and southeast!” they say.
At the same time, information sometimes appears that an observation point installed in the fall near school No. 75 recorded excesses of formaldehyde. For example, on December 2 at night - 1.9 times. But, as residents believe, this is not all excesses. Information about all the measurements on the Web has not appeared. In addition, no one measures the level of benzpyrene, which once, according to Lazareva, for some reason surfaced in the observations of Rospotrebnadzor.
Residents continue to publish photos not only of smog, but also of enterprises, from the chimneys of which black, uncleaned smoke rises. It is noticed not only by the "furniture makers" in the GSK, but also by quite official enterprises in the industrial zone of the Trans-Volga region.
Officials also began to talk about "harmful" enterprises. In early December, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced that during the raid three sources of emissions of harmful substances into the air were identified in the territories of legal
individuals and individual entrepreneurs who burned waste. At the same time, the main blame is still placed on garage production, which "are in the shade." Moreover, the head of Rosprirodnadzor, Alexander Kaplin, said that self-employed entrepreneurs “are, from the point of view of the legislator, not dangerous”, Rospotrebnadzor has no right to check small enterprises, regional control cannot check large enterprises.
Kaplin said that the prosecutor's office should conduct raids and bring enterprises out of the shadows, so that they, among other things, began to transmit information about the amount of waste.
Nevertheless, officials continue to run away from the answer rather than look for a solution. Quite by accident, for example, it turned out that on Wednesday a "round table" on the problem was scheduled. Officials reported about it in the comments on one of the Ulyanovsk portals - it looks a little like an invitation to everyone, especially considering that it will take place at 9.00 on a weekday.
Residents of the Volga region are preparing a protest rally.
Residents of houses suffer from tobacco smoke in the entrances. How to hold accountable those who smoke?
This question was asked by a reader of the "Ural Miner" Valentina Mikhailovna, who lives in an apartment building and decided to fight for her right to breathe air without tobacco smog.
Poor smokers! The attack on them is being carried out on all fronts - from the adoption of harsh laws that limit the ability to calmly raise a smoke to a predatory increase in the cost of a pack of poison. Wherever you throw it, repression and infringement of rights are everywhere, and for some reason, no program was provided for real measures to help say goodbye to a bad habit, although this addiction is comparable to drug addiction and willpower alone is not enough to get rid of most sufferers.
But those who do not have a harmful addiction to nicotine can also be understood. People have the right, at least at home, to breathe deeply without fear of choking on a cough, falling down with an asthmatic attack, or, more seriously, getting some kind of cancer. In addition, the smoke penetrates everywhere and remains in the walls, furniture, clothes, "giving" a nasty aroma to everything it comes into contact with.
NOTE
“The Federal Law “On Protecting the Health of Citizens from Exposure to Secondhand Tobacco Smoke and the Consequences of Tobacco Consumption” in Article 12 of Part 1 lists a list of places where tobacco smoking is prohibited, not excluding “premises intended for the provision of housing services.” The second part of the same article of the law lists cases that allow tobacco smoking, but "on the basis of a decision of the owner of the property or another person authorized to do so by the owners of the property", but with the proviso "in specially designated places in the open air or in isolated common areas apartment buildings that are equipped with ventilation systems»
It is possible to bring to justice a person who smokes in the entrance, if this is the goal. First you need to prove the fact of smoking. Such evidence can be the testimony of witnesses, photo and video materials. But you need to take into account that no one will voluntarily pose in front of the cameras under compromising circumstances, and the conflict may flare up. At the same time, quite often the servants of the law do not really trust such materials due to the possibility of falsifying a violation.
The fight for clean air can be started by putting up no-smoking signs and small informational posters in prominent places indicating the legislation and fines. If the violations continue, it makes sense to contact the authorized district police officer, who will be able to convincingly acquaint the smoker with the position of the law on this situation. Few people will like the prospect of paying for a moment of weakness with a considerable amount of banknotes.
Article 6.24 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation states that for violation of the ban on tobacco smoking established by the Federal Law in certain territories, in premises and at objects, - entails the imposition of an administrative fine in the amount of 500 to 1500 rubles.
Hope Zagorodsky.
The material was prepared using information from Internet resources: 77metrov.ru,