Most Beijing residents are interested in environmental issues and are aware of their responsibility in this respect, according to a survey released recently.

The public are found to have paid more attention to their living conditions, including sanitation, drinking water, air quality, afforestation, trash disposal and noise, revealed the Beijing Environmental Communication and Education Center and Beijing Institute of Social-Psychological Studies in their joint survey. The respondents gave a "medium mark" of 70.76 points to describe the level of their satisfaction about their surroundings.

A total of 1511 responded to the survey for 2006. 66.7 percent of them gave a positive assessment of the city's environment protection efforts, especially as regards the improvement of air quality. However, there are still many who complain about the impact of air and noise pollution.

97.09 percent of the respondents said they agree with the notion that it is everyone's responsibility to protect the environment, while over 70 percent said the cost of the environmental degradation should be offset by public finance or borne by those who cause it; only one third said they were ready to contribute financially to environmental protection.

82 percent of the respondents said they have taken part in some form of environmental protection campaign. The proportion of people who are willing to publicize the "Drive One Day Less" campaign rose by 31.1 percent, replacing tree-planting and trash picking as the main volunteer activities.