ECOLOGY is not of interest to most Slovaks, according to the Dicio polling agency, which discovered in a recent survey of environmental behaviour that Slovaks are environmentally lazy.
"The everyday life of Slovaks is steered by comfort, in spite of fears concerning the worsening environment,” Martin Štulrajter of Dicio said when commenting on the study, the SITA newswire wrote.
Dicio conducted the study from September 12 to 24 on a sample of 1,607 respondents aged 18 to 79.
The poll shows that more than three quarters (77.7 percent) of Slovaks will behave environmentally as long as it does not threaten their comfort or money, and does not require effort.
Another 17.7 percent believe that nothing they could do would change anything.
Only 4.5 percent of Slovaks are environmentally friendly even if it takes additional effort and may negatively influence their living standard.
Just 0.1 percent did not respond to the survey.
More than half of those polled (56 percent) think that the people around them look for a sensible balance between the environment and their own comfort.
"It is questionable, of course, where this limit lies,” Štulrajter said.
According to 29 percent of respondents, people prefer their own comfort to the environment.
"On the contrary, just 7.2 percent of citizens have people around them who put the environment above their own comfort,” Štulrajter noted.
3. Nov 2008 at 0:00 | Compiled by Jana Liptáková from press reports