The cleanest city in the world: the top 5

Cleanliness is the guarantee of health. We all heard this phrase in our childhood and diligently washed our hands with soap. Then we grew up and began to teach our children to live in purity and order. And what about our cities? Why do we treat them so carelessly and we pollute the environment without even thinking about the consequences? As it turned out, the cleanest city in the world is not so easy to choose. Unfortunately, the consciousness and level of development of human civilization has not yet reached the limit beyond which total concern for the preservation of the environment begins.

Pollution of the environment: the scourge of the 21st century

A couple of centuries ago people did not think about pollution of the environment. Virtually the entire population of the world lived in rural areas, and life in the cities was the lot of a few who wanted to be in the center of events and world news. But literally in a hundred years, everything has changed in the most drastic way - technical progress has led to the fact that more than seventy percent of the world's inhabitants have chosen their city's habitat.

This led to an increase in the burden on these territories. With what do we associate a big city? Of course, with smoking pipes of factories, mud on the streets, unpleasant smells and eternal grayness. Unpleasant picture, is not it? But this is how most of us live. Although in recent years, the trend towards environmental care is starting to gain momentum and gradually captures many cities in the world. Unfortunately, it is too early to talk about the mass nature of this phenomenon. But if you look at the list of the cleanest cities in the world, you will see that you can still live in purity. The population of such cities says that it is necessary to start the changes from themselves.

Classification of cities

First of all, all the cities of the world can be divided into four categories:

• 1 group - the city administration does everything to stabilize the ecology, and forms responsible attitude to the environment among the citizens.
• 2 group - the environmental situation in these cities is extremely difficult, but the administration is coming to understand the need for urgent measures to save the city's ecology.
• 3 group - the data of the city do not have a polluting industry, therefore the population and sewage treatment plants contribute to the deterioration of the ecological situation.
• The 4th group is the most polluted city, which does not have budget funds for creating environmentally oriented programs.

Of course, it is difficult to identify which is the cleanest city in the world among such different in terms of pollution levels of settlements, but for this, there are global standards for the environmental situation of cities.

Clean City: evaluation criteria

To choose the cleanest city in the world, you must first make a list of the evaluation criteria by which the study will be conducted. What is included in the concept of a clean city? On which points should you assess the purity of cities, because they all have different levels of pollution and industrial potential?

Most often, six characteristics are involved in assessing the state of the environment in a populated area that allows selecting the most environmentally friendly cities in the world. We now list them:

• The number of green zones in proportion to the area of the city;
• The availability of a program for the processing of domestic garbage and the percentage of this processing to the total waste of the city;
• Air quality (determined by samples);
• Water quality (also determined by samples);
• Percentage of budget funds allocated to the implementation of environmental programs;
• Participation of citizens in maintaining the purity of the city.

According to all these characteristics, we are ready to give your attention to the world's cleanest cities in the world.

Top 5 tourist centers

Probably, every tourist would like to see the cleanest city in the world and spend a vacation there. Therefore, we decided to make a list of the most environmentally friendly and popular tourist cities:

1. Singapore.

The cleanliness of this city fascinates many tourists. Here are imposed severe fines for smoking in public places or thrown out on the asphalt wrapper. The average penalty is approximately $ 500. This system proved to be very effective, with time, the townspeople learned to not litter and actively support the purity of their beloved city.

2. Vienna.

The capital of Austria even at first glance looks very clean and well-groomed. The population of the city is proud of its historical heritage and is trying to preserve a unique city for its descendants.

3. Dresden.

This amazing city is not only a cultural, but also an industrial center. But its legends are pure legends, German pedantry has made the city literally perfect. It is impossible to find garbage in the streets or see smoke from the factory pipes.

4. Stockholm.

It is no wonder that the Swedish city was included in the list "The cleanest city in the world". The government of the country pays special attention to ecology and care for the environment, therefore Stockholm appears to tourists in a surprisingly pure form. In addition, light pollution is minimized in this city.

5. Abu Dhabi.

The city's emir spends a lot of money for maintaining cleanliness in the streets and implementing environmental programs. Here work the most professional specialists in the field of environmental protection.

Of course, it's sad that not a single Russian city has entered this list. Russia can not yet boast a responsible attitude to the environment.

World Health Organization: ranking the cleanest cities

WHO annually compiles its lists of environmentally-friendly capitals of the world. Most often in the top five are European cities. The rating compiled in 2016 is as follows:

1. Sweden - Stockholm.
2. Scotland - Edinburgh.
3. Canada - Ottawa.
4. Australia - Canberra.
5. Wellington - New Zealand.

It is worth noting that Stockholm quite often falls into this list, taking different positions in it.

Top 10 of the cleanest cities in the world: rating of alternative public organizations

Not only recognized organizations are engaged in assessing the purity and pollution of the world's cities, but also private organizations. Public interest in protecting the environment is increasing every year, so there are alternative ratings:

1. Calgary (Canada).

This small town is located in the valley, two rivers pass through the city. Local residents argue that the water from these rivers can be drunk without harm to health.

2. Adelaide (Australia).

Here waste processing is organized at a high level, more than eighty percent of garbage is processed by special facilities. A large number of parks and squares are broken in the city.

3. Honolulu (Hawaii).

It is called the pearl of the tropics, where thousands of tourists from all over the world come with pleasure.

4. Minneapolis (USA).

Despite the fact that the city's population has already exceeded three million people, it remains surprisingly clean. This contributes to the high awareness of residents and environmental programs.

5. Kobe (Japan).

Advanced Japanese technologies aimed at preserving the environment, help make the country's cities the cleanest.

6. Copenhagen (Denmark).

Not once fell into the rating of the cleanest cities. Two years Copenhagen even won the category "Green Capital of Europe".

7. Wellington (New Zealand).

This city managed to get a high score for almost all indicators.

8. Helsinki (Finland).

This city is the heart of Finland, and all its residents are watching to ensure that their city was the cleanest and most comfortable.

9. Oslo (Norway).

In recent years, Oslo has made significant progress in implementing environmental programs. He reduced emissions to the atmosphere and continues to work on maintaining the cleanliness of the streets.

10. Freiburg (Germany).

To this city quite often use the prefix "eco". Freiburg is incredibly green and well maintained, in addition, the quality of life of its population has been maintained at a high level for several years.

The cleanest countries in the world

Do you know which countries are the most pure cities? Do not be surprised, this rating also exists. The top 3 most pure countries in the world looks like this:

• Switzerland.
• Sweden.
• Norway.

Environmentalists believe that the Nordic countries will continue to lead the list for a long time, because their governments do not spare money for environmental programs.

Russia: rating of the cleanest cities

And what about Russia? What does our own rating of the cleanest cities look like? In our country, unfortunately, there are no large public organizations that would follow the ecology of Russian cities. Therefore, we made the top 5 cleanest cities in Russia, taking information from various sources. This list looks like this:

• Volgograd.
• St. Petersburg.
• Saransk.
• Vologda.
• Kursk.

Of course, these are very approximate data based on a set of estimates corresponding to generally accepted international standards.

Each person is responsible for the cleanliness of the world around him, because one should not wait for someone to start large-scale actions to clean up the city. You can just pick up a wrapper, got on the asphalt, and go out to the subbotnik to remove the garbage from the nearby park. When this is done by absolutely all residents of megacities, the list of the cleanest cities in the world will be filled with new names.