essay about the sound pollution

Sound Pollution Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on sound pollution.

Sound pollution also known as Noise Pollution is one of the most rampant pollutions we find in the world. Especially in India, the nuisance of sound pollution is steadily on the rise, especially in urban cities and areas. Some statistics say that noise pollution in New Delhi is now having medical effects on the inhabitants of the city. But what exactly constitutes sound pollution? Let us read more in this sound pollution essay.

Sound or rather noise pollution is a physical form of pollution. Sound pollution does not affect any element of our environment directly. So it does not have a direct effect on the land, air, soil or any other such life-supporting elements. It actually affects the human population more directly. Essentially the excess of sound or noise, such that it causes disturbance and imbalances the day-to-day life of humans and animals is known as noise pollution.

Sources of Sound Pollution

While sound pollution is not fatal or lethal in any form to humans, it is still a very harmful form of pollution. In this sound pollution essay, it is essential that we look at some of the major sources of sound pollution and how they contribute to the ever-rising degradation of our habitats.

All the sources of noise pollution are man-made in nature. One of the most common and harmful sources is the noise caused due to various transportation systems and motor vehicles in particular. Increasing traffic congestions, the sheer number of vehicles on the roads, the noise from unnecessary honking, etc are all major contributing factors to sound pollution, especially in major cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

Read 500 Words Essay on Pollution here.

The other major source of noise pollution is industrial activities. Since the Industrial Revolution, the world has never slowed down manufacturing and other industrial activities. This has taken a toll on our environment in the form of land and air pollution. And now we can add noise pollution to the list. Factories, printing presses, mills, metal works, etc. are all contributing to the noise pollution of the area. Hence it is ideal to keep industrial areas and residential areas separate, but this is not always possible.

There are quite literally thousands of other sources such as loudspeakers, roadworks, crackers, household noises, agricultural activities, that all are also harmful and cause some degree of noise pollution.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Effects of Noise Pollution

As we saw earlier in this sound pollution essay, the effects of sound pollution are directly on humans and not on the environment as such. While these effects are not instantaneous there are some very serious effects of noise pollution that cannot be taken lightly. The effects of noise pollution are both physical and psychological or behavioral in nature.

One of the obvious physical effects is the effect sound pollution can have on the hearing of a person. Hearing loss or some form of hearing impairment due to excessive noise is becoming increasingly common. And this is not only restricted to senior citizens, but even the younger generation is also being affected in this manner. Another common effect is the lack of sleep due to noise pollution. This, in turn, causes various other symptoms such as irritability, hypertension, ulcers and even cardiovascular diseases.

Persistent insomnia can cause humans to have certain negative psychological effects which we can also trace back to sound pollution. Fatigue, mental strain, stress and even depression in some capacity can be the effects of sound pollution.

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Essay on Noise Pollution: 100, 300 and 500 Words

Updated on
Sep 8, 2023

Noise pollution, an insidious environmental menace, refers to the excessive and undesirable sound that disrupts the tranquillity of our surroundings. Often originating from urban areas, transportation, industries, and recreational activities, noise pollution has far-reaching implications on human health and well-being.

Prolonged exposure to high noise levels can lead to stress, sleep disturbances, hearing impairment, and even cardiovascular problems. Moreover, it disturbs the natural habitat of wildlife and affects the overall quality of life. In this blog, we will give you a 100, 300, and 500-word essay on noise pollution.

100 Words Essay on Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is a pressing environmental issue that has detrimental effects on human health and well-being. It refers to our surroundings’ excessive, unwanted, and disturbing sounds. These sounds can originate from various sources, such as traffic, industrial machinery, construction, and even recreational activities.

Exposure to high levels of noise pollution can lead to several health problems, including hearing loss, increased stress, sleep disturbances, and cardiovascular issues. Additionally, it can disrupt communication, hinder concentration, and decrease overall quality of life.

To mitigate noise pollution, it’s essential to implement sound regulations and promote noise-reducing technologies in urban planning and infrastructure development . Public awareness and responsible behaviour, such as reducing unnecessary honking and limiting loud activities during nighttime hours, also play a crucial role in combating this problem.

In conclusion, addressing noise pollution is vital for creating healthier, more livable urban environments and improving the overall well-being of communities.

300 Words Essay on Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is a pervasive and often underestimated environmental issue that has a significant impact on the quality of life in urban areas. It refers to the excessive, unwanted, and disruptive sounds that fill our surroundings, leading to a wide range of physical, psychological, and social problems.

Sources of Noise Pollution

One of the primary sources of noise pollution in urban settings is traffic. The constant roar of engines, honking horns, and screeching brakes can be overwhelming. Industrial activities also contribute significantly, with the relentless hum of machinery and construction sites adding to the cacophony. In addition to these, social and recreational activities, such as concerts, parties, and even barking dogs, can add to the noise burden.

Consequences of Noise Pollution

The consequences of noise pollution are far-reaching. Physiologically, exposure to high noise levels can lead to hearing loss, elevated stress levels, and an increased risk of cardiovascular problems. It can disrupt sleep patterns, leading to chronic fatigue and irritability. Noise pollution can also impair cognitive functions and hinder concentration, impacting productivity and academic performance .

Moreover, noise pollution has social implications. It can strain relationships among neighbours, causing conflicts and reducing the sense of community. Children growing up in noisy environments may experience delays in language development and learning difficulties. Additionally, it affects wildlife, disrupting their natural habitats and communication.

How to Reduce Noise Pollution

Addressing noise pollution requires a multifaceted approach. Urban planning and zoning regulations can play a crucial role in minimizing noise exposure for residents. The development of noise barriers, quieter road surfaces, and improved public transportation can help mitigate the problem. Promoting the use of noise-reducing technologies, such as quieter machinery and better-insulated buildings, is also essential.

Individual responsibility is equally vital. Reducing unnecessary honking, limiting loud activities during nighttime hours, and using noise-cancelling headphones are practical steps individuals can take to reduce their contribution to noise pollution.

In conclusion, noise pollution poses a growing threat to urban life, affecting physical and mental health, social harmony, and overall well-being. To combat this issue effectively, a combination of government regulations, technological advancements, and individual awareness and responsibility is needed.

500 Words Essay on Noise Pollution

Introduction.

Noise pollution encompasses unwanted and disruptive sounds generated by various sources, including transportation, industrial activities, and recreational events.

This essay explores the causes, effects, and solutions to noise pollution, emphasizing the pressing need for collective action to mitigate its adverse impact on modern urban life.

Causes of Noise Pollution

1. Transportation: Urban areas are characterized by constant traffic flow, which is a primary source of noise pollution. The incessant rumble of engines, screeching tires, and incessant honking contribute significantly to the overall noise levels.

2. Industrial Activities: Industries and factories, often concentrated in urban zones, generate noise through the operation of heavy machinery, equipment, and manufacturing processes. Construction activities, with their bulldozers and pile drivers, are particularly notorious for their noise emissions.

3. Recreational Activities: Urban centres are hubs of entertainment and recreation, hosting concerts, sporting events, and social gatherings. These activities generate high levels of noise, especially when amplified music or cheering crowds are involved.

Effects of Noise Pollution

1. Health Implications: Prolonged exposure to high noise levels can lead to severe health problems. Hearing impairment is a common consequence, with noise-induced hearing loss being a well-documented issue. Noise pollution is also linked to increased stress, anxiety, and elevated blood pressure, which can escalate the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

2. Sleep Disturbances: Noise pollution disrupts sleep patterns, leading to chronic sleep disturbances. Poor sleep quality can result in fatigue, irritability, and decreased cognitive performance, affecting overall productivity and well-being.

3. Cognitive Impairment: Noise pollution impairs cognitive functions, making it difficult to concentrate and focus. This can hinder academic performance and reduce workplace productivity.

Solutions to Noise Pollution

1. Urban Planning: Thoughtful urban planning and zoning regulations are essential to mitigate noise pollution. Separating industrial areas from residential zones, implementing noise-buffering green spaces, and designing soundproofed buildings can significantly reduce noise exposure.

2. Noise Barriers: Erecting noise barriers along highways and busy roads can shield residential areas from traffic noise. These barriers are designed to absorb or reflect sound waves, reducing their impact.

3. Quiet Transportation: Promoting quieter modes of transportation, such as electric vehicles and hybrid engines, can substantially reduce noise pollution. Improved public transportation can also reduce the number of private vehicles on the road.

Noise pollution poses a significant threat to urban life, affecting physical and mental health, social harmony, and overall well-being.

To effectively combat this issue, concerted efforts are required at the individual, community, and government levels. Implementing noise-reducing technologies, adopting responsible behaviour, and enacting sound urban planning policies are steps toward creating quieter, healthier, and more livable urban environments for all.

Also Read: Essay on Sustainable Development: Format; Examples

Ans. The primary sources of noise pollution include transportation, industrial activities, and recreational events. Transportation-related noise comes from vehicles on roads, railways, and aircraft in the sky. Industrial activities generate noise through machinery, equipment, and construction. Recreational events like concerts, sporting events, and social gatherings also contribute to noise pollution.

Ans. Noise pollution can have adverse effects on human health. Prolonged exposure to high noise levels can lead to hearing loss, increased stress, anxiety, and elevated blood pressure. It can disrupt sleep patterns, resulting in chronic fatigue and irritability. Noise pollution can also impair cognitive functions, making it challenging to concentrate and focus, which can impact productivity and overall well-being.

Ans. To reduce noise pollution, several measures can be implemented. These include: 1. Urban Planning: Thoughtful urban planning and zoning regulations can separate noisy industrial areas from residential zones and incorporate green spaces to buffer noise. 2. Noise Barriers: Installing noise barriers along highways and busy roads can shield residential areas from traffic noise by absorbing or reflecting sound waves. 3. Quiet Transportation: Promoting quieter transportation options like electric vehicles and hybrid engines can reduce noise emissions.

We hope that this blog on Noise Pollution has given you some known and unknown facts and secrets about Noise Pollution. For more amazing reads on essay writing , follow Leverage Edu.

Aditi Gupta

A bachelors in Journalism and Mass Communication graduate, I am an enthusiastic writer. I love to write about impactful content which can help others. I love to binge watch and listen to music during my free time.

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Noise Pollution Essay

Essay on Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is one of the types of pollution we face daily. Like air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution and other types, noise pollution has a major impact on our health. Atmospheric pollution is not the only pollution we go through, but noise pollution can bring destruction to our lives. According to the World Health Organization, noise pollution is a dangerous health issue. The European Environment (EEA) says noise pollution is responsible for 16,600 premature deaths in Europe alone.

A person continuously facing noise pollution can start meeting health issues and can be dangerous in the long term. Several unpleasant noise distractions can bring problems later in life.

Cities have become noisier with car honking, loudspeakers; traffic, etc. leading to noise pollution. Construction of roads, buildings, apartments and other areas are also resulting in increased noise pollution.

What is Noise Pollution?

According to the WHO, noise pollution is a noise above 65db, which can severely affect both humans and animals. A noise beyond 75 dB can be painful and will affect the person severely.

It is impossible to see the danger posed by noise pollution. On land and under the sea, you can't see it, but it still exists. Humans and other organisms can be affected adversely by noise pollution if it is an unwanted or disturbing sound.

A decibel is the measurement of sound. Rustling leaves (20-30 decibels) or thunderclaps (120 decibels) to the wail of sirens (120-140 decibels) are all sounds that occur naturally in the natural environment. If a person hears sounds whose decibel level reaches 85 decibels or higher, their ears can be damaged. The sounds of lawnmowers (90 decibels), trains (90 to 115 decibels), and rock concerts (110 to 120 decibels) are just a few familiar sources that exceed this threshold.

The presence of noise pollution has a daily impact on millions of people. Hearing loss caused by noise is the most common health problem caused by noise exposure. Furthermore, loud noise can also lead to health problems such as hypertension, heart disease, sleep disturbances, and stress. All age groups are susceptible to these health problems, especially children. It has been shown that children living near loud airports and busy streets suffer from stress and other problems, such as memory problems, attention difficulties, and difficulties with reading.

Animals are also adversely affected by noise pollution. Caterpillars' hearts beat faster when loud sounds are made, and bluebirds have fewer chicks when loud noises are made. There are many reasons animals utilize sound, including to navigate, locate food, attract mates, and avoid predators. The noise pollution they encounter affects their ability to accomplish these tasks, affecting their survival.

Noisy environments are not only harming animals on land, but it is also getting worse for animals in the ocean. A once tranquil marine environment has become loud and chaotic because of ships, drilling devices, sonar, and seismic surveys. The negative effects of noise pollution are felt particularly by whales and dolphins. For marine mammals, echolocation is essential for communication, navigation, feeding and mate-finding. Excessive noise can interfere with echolocation.

It is the naval sonar devices that produce the loudest underwater noise. The use of sonar works similarly to echolocation in that sound waves are sent down into the ocean and bounce off objects, returning echoes to the ship that can pinpoint the object's location. Whales' ability to use echolocation is interfered with when they hear sonar sounds, which can reach 235 decibels and travel hundreds of miles under the surface. Research has shown that sonar can make whales strand on beaches and alter the feeding behaviour of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), which are endangered. Groups representing the environment have called on the U.S. Department of Defense to discontinue or reduce sonar-based military training.

Furthermore, hydrographic surveys can cause loud explosions from inside the ocean. Deep in the water, oil and gas are found using air guns that send sound pulses onto the ocean floor. There is potential for marine animals to be harmed by the sound blasts and to suffer serious damage to their ears. Additionally, the whales may also change their behaviour as a result of this noise.

In Spain, bioacoustics researcher Michel Andre is studying the effects of noise pollution with the help of hydrophones. He has gathered data from 22 different locations during his project, LIDO (Listening to the Deep Ocean Environment). Using computers, the lab identifies 26 different species of whales and dolphins, including sounds produced by humans. In the analysis, underwater noise will be investigated for its effect on these animals.

What causes Noise Pollution?

Although the world is turning into the use of technology, at the same time, this technology is also harmful. Industries using compressors, exhaust fans, and generators are producing a lot of noise.

Similarly, bikes and cars with old silencers produce heavy noise that can lead to pollution. Planes, heavy trucks and buses are also part of this noise pollution. Low flying aircraft, especially military ones, causes noise pollution. Similarly, submarines can cause ocean sound pollution.

How Noise Pollution affects a Person?

Noise pollution can primarily start affecting the hearing ability of the person, causing permanent hearing impairment. Furthermore, it can cause an increase in blood pressure, hypertension, and other stress-related health issues. In many cases, noise pollution can cause a disturbance in a person's state of mind, which further causes disturbance in sleep patterns, stress, aggressiveness, and other issues. The psychological health of the person can also get disturbed due to regular exposure to noise pollution. Noise above 45 dB can disrupt the pattern of your sleep. According to the WHO, the noise level should not be more than 30db. Change in the sleep pattern can also bring change in your behaviour.

If you have pets in your home or around your area, then noise pollution can bring a negative impact on the environment. Firecrackers can bring fear in them if they are regularly exposed to them. This will also bring change in their behaviour.

Effect on Wildlife and Marine Life

Animals and marine life are vulnerable to noise pollution. It can affect their listening skills, which further affects their behaviour pattern. These animals find it hard to listen during migration, which can negatively affect their lives. When it comes to marine life, noise pollution can lead to internal damage like physical problems in them.

Measures for Noise Pollution

There are many measures taken by the government and people to reduce the effect of noise pollution. Soundproof walls and windows are now being installed in many houses. Many flyovers in cities have soundproof walls to bring down the noise level to a nearby resident from vehicles running. As responsible citizens, we must contribute towards bringing down noise pollution. Needless honking should be stopped and officials should fine people doing it heavily. Hospitals and schools are built-in silent zones.

There should be rules to avoid noise in residential and sensitive areas. People need to be aware of health hazards from noise pollution.

One of the best ways to bring down noise pollution is by planting more and more plants. This process of planting trees can help to reduce the travelling of noise from one place to another.

Noise pollution is the most common problem faced by humans, thanks to various reasons that push many people to face health issues. Following standard measures can be helpful in the long term for both humans and the environment. The ultimate aim is to bring down noise pollution for a better environment.

Noise Pollution: Impact on Human Health

There are several ways in which noise pollution can harm human health:

Having an elevated blood pressure for a long period directly results in hypertension, which is caused by noise pollution.

Hearing loss occurs whenever humans are repeatedly exposed to sounds that exceed what their eardrums can handle, resulting in permanent damage to their hearing.

To function properly at work, it is necessary to get enough sleep every night. Sleep disorders affect energy levels throughout the day. Pollution causes disturbance in sleep cycles, which in turn results in irritation and unrest.

Heart issues such as blood pressure level, stress and cardiovascular diseases can arise in a healthy individual, but a person suffering from heart disease may experience a sudden increase.

It will affect your mental health also very badly because continuously hearing the noise this much loud will pressure your eardrums and that will badly affect your brain also

FAQs on Noise Pollution Essay

1. What are the significant factors causing noise pollution?

Multiple factors can result in noise pollution. Some of these are massive honking during road traffic, construction, poor urban planning, loudspeaker and others. Furthermore, firecrackers, the noise of bands and others can also result in noise pollution.

To eliminate or decrease noise pollution, it is crucial to know their effect. This will help to create measures and work towards it.

2. How can noise pollution be controlled?

There are different ways of controlling noise pollution. Some of the measures are-

Control at Receiver's End - For those people who are working in noisy installations- they can work on ear-protection aids like earplugs, earmuffs, noise helmets, etc.

Reducing Noise from Vibrating Machine - Another way is by the noise produced from the vibrating machine by vibration damping, beneath the engine.

Planting of Trees - One of the best ways to reduce noise pollution is to plant more and more trees along roads, around hospitals and schools.

3. Who is at the risk of the health effects of noise pollution?

When it comes to the effect of noise pollution, the risk of health effects can be for any age of the person. Sound louder than 80 dB can be hazardous. Be it, kids or young adults, high decibel sound can affect ears. People who listen to headphones can face noise-induced hearing loss issues. Additionally, there is the current scenario where people are completely used to using headphones and gadgets that impact their hearing ability. Because of that, those people are more likely to experience health problems caused by noise pollution.

4. In what different ways can noise pollution cause health problems?

We can say that there are three types of pollutants:

noise from transportation

transportation

transportation, noise from the surroundings

surroundings

surroundings, and industrial noise

Noise from transportation: Traffic noise is mainly responsible for this disturbing noise, which has increased greatly since the number of vehicles has increased. Increased noise pollution causes older people to lose their hearing, headaches, and hypertension, among other diseases.

Noise from the Neighbourhood: Electronics, household utensils, etc. cause a lot of noise. Musical instruments, transistors, speakers, and others are the most common sources.

Noise from Industrial Processes: An industrial machine produces an especially loud noise due to its high intensity. A large number of studies have shown that industrial noise pollution damages hearing by 20% to 30%.

5. How does noise cause environmental pollution? What are the reasons why noise pollution must be taken seriously?

Noise pollution is caused by extreme noises generated by sources such as industry, transport, loudspeakers, etc, which adversely affect human health by causing headaches, migraines, mental imbalance, nervous breakdowns, and heart diseases.

There are numerous health hazards associated with noise. The following are some of the physical, physiological, and psychological effects of prolonged exposure to noise:

A reduction in sleep is one of the effects of repeated exposure to noise.

Noise noise, which affects human productivity and efficiency.

Taking pictures of someone invades their privacy and disturbs their peace of mind.

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Essay on Noise Pollution : Causes, Effects & Solutions

February 2, 2021 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

Table of Contents

What is Noise pollution?

Noise pollution is a type of pollution that does not directly affect the environment but has adverse effects on the hearing abilities of the inhabitants of our ecosystem.

Hearing of an organism is directly linked to the nervous systems internally.

Hence noise pollution affects the mental health and disturbs the delicate balance of an individual in case of over-exposure to noise levels beyond a certain decibel.

There may have been many instances, especially when you’re living in a city, that you’ve been so annoyed with the noise around you, that you lose your composure. You grab your ears and just wait for the noise to stop.

That is the essence of noise pollution. It comprises of all the loud noises around you, caused by vehicular traffic, heavy machinery in factories and sometimes, the disturbance of trains and aeroplanes, if you live near an airport or railway station .

The blaring sounds from loudspeakers and high speakers are not to be left behind, especially when there are processions or big festivals taking place.

Let us ponder over a few examples for better understanding.

Whales are known to emit their call louder when they detect a submarine since a submarine uses SONAR and other sound oriented devices for communication and navigation.

The SONAR dampens the whale’s call, making it less effective, which in turn might lead to some members not hearing it and missing some vital signal, like a hunting call.

Causes of noise pollution

Let us first begin by trying to understand how noise is generated technically.

Noise basically is a mixture of all sounds around us. These sounds originate from various sources. Inside the waveform of a noise, we can find overlapping waveform indicating mixed and jumbled outputs rendering ‘noise’.

The outcomes may contain undesirable and irritating waveform called noise. Noise pollution is more prominent in urban areas than in rural areas.

This is because rural areas have only half the amount of vehicles, minimal amount of factories and other sources producing loud noises.

It is more discomforting and annoying in particular to senior citizens, who seek a calm and peaceful atmosphere in their days of retirement. In India, festivals are a crucial part of our culture and thus, are given utmost importance.

But the celebrations and proceedings involved with these festivities result in noise pollution on a wide scale.

This scenario especially gets worse when people disregard the fact about patients in hospitals, nursing mothers, pregnant women and ill patients who need relief from such blaring noises.

Similar is the case with wedding celebrations. Nowadays, almost everyone holds a wedding procession which involves the bride and groom, either walking or on horses or carriages, slowly proceeding towards the groom’s house.

Celebrations take place on a large scale involving huge loudspeakers and noise from trumpets and drum beats causing inconvenience to residents and other establishments, including schools, colleges, hospitals and other religious establishments like temples and churches.

Well known incidences of noise pollution occur during festivals, normal, everyday traffic on the road, etc.

During festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi , Diwali etc the occurrence of sound pollution is really high.

Diwali causes noise as well as Air pollution , people celebrate Diwali for their joy, and indeed they burst crackers that create massive noise.

Traffic on the road is the primary reason for sound pollution in big cities. There are many other factors too that cause the deadly noise pollution.

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Effects of noise pollution

Our human ear can detect sounds in the frequencies between 20Hz to 20 KHz. But constant exposure to sound beyond certain intensity is harmful to the ears.

We already know that sound intensity is measured in Decibels, also denoted as dB. In a normal airport, a plane that is landing or leaving the run way creates a noise exceeding intensities of 120 dB.

There are chances of irreversible damage to the human ear when exposed to noises above 80 dB. Instances of noise have been recorded from the ancient times in the cities of Rome, on account of the dawn of industrialization.

Poorly planned cities and towns are another reason where residents have to become victims of noise pollution. If the city is near an industrial area, then the residential areas face heavy instances of noise pollution.

Though the human ear’s maximum capacity of tolerating noise cannot be exactly measured, it is believed that the intensity is about 80 dB.

Continuous exposure to sounds of intensities higher than this may lead to a myriad of health problems. It may lead to physical as well as psychological changes.

A person shows increased levels of stress and becomes prone to mental illnesses if he is prone to irregular levels of noise.

Every person’s tolerance is inbuilt differently and the ability of a person to tolerate noise provides him stability from within. Beyond that threshold level, the mind senses disturbance and gets irritated by the effects of noise.

This irritability is then transferred to the inner regions on the brain wherein complex reactions alter normal functioning of brain components.

When this process happens over long periods of time, the brain functioning itself gets altered and that’s when we say that an abnormality has occurred in the mental well being of a person.

The chances of a cardio vascular disease are also highly elevated. It is not just humans who are affected, but animals in the vicinity too face disturbance.

Dogs, with a higher sense of hearing, may get their ears damaged by exposure to higher levels of noise pollution.

Wildlife is adversely affected, as the loud man-made noises drown the mating calls, warning alarms and threat noises that animals use normally to communicate with one another.

For example in birds, the bird robin is observed to sing more likely at night, in a heavily noise polluted area since, in the day time, the noises are significantly louder.

Solutions for noise pollution

The threat of noise pollution is being realized and the governments are taking measures to reduce them.

In India too, certain rules and regulations have been set up regarding noise generation and emission. But the enforcement of these laws is not incorporated on strict terms and thus the defaulters escape scot-free.

It is good to know that there are many NGOs (non-government organizations) that have taken the initiative to reduce noise pollution and so far they’ve made tremendous progress, especially in the urban areas.

The rural areas, unfortunately, still face the wrath of noise pollution. It is up to us, the educated urban crowds, to control and prohibit the curse of noise pollution.

It’s also good to create awareness among the rural inhabitants regarding the ill effects of noise pollution.

Today, everyone has come to know the deadly effect of noise pollution. The government has taken some of the crucial steps to reduce the sound pollution.

The noise of Loud Speakers should be limited and should not cross beyond a certain decibel. An individual or group isn’t permitted to use loud speakers in the vicinity of schools, colleges, and hospitals.

Government has imposed strict restrictions and posed limitations on the use of loudspeakers during festivals. It has posted a big list do’s and don’ts and applied the rules at appropriate regions of high noise traffic.

The effects of noise pollution is not restricted to human beings alone, it has deadly impacts on lives of animals as well.

To control this type of pollution, people should create awareness on its impact on human health. Airports should be situated far away from residential areas.

Manufacturing industries such as steel and iron establishments should be situated far away from residential complexes.

It’s more of an individual effort to control noise pollution. We may not be able to totally stop noise pollution , but we can definitely take steps to reduce it by a great level.

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Noise Pollution Essay

When noise levels exceed the normal range, this is known as noise pollution. When noise levels exceed safe levels, it becomes harmful to living things. Additionally, these irritating noises disrupt several activities and imbalance the surroundings. Here are a few sample essays on the topic ‘noise pollution’.

100 Words Essay On Noise Pollution

Noise Pollution is regarded as a form of environmental pollution brought on by excessive noise from various sources. The term "noise disturbance" also applies to noise pollution. In addition to being unhealthy, excessive noise can disturb animal or human life. Although there is a significant environmental problem in India that requires adequate attention to be resolved, noise pollution is less dangerous than pollution of the water, air, and soil. Machines, transportation systems, poor urban planning and other factors contribute to outdoor noise.

Among the sources of indoor noise include domestic appliances, construction activity, loud music, etc. The most frequent disability brought on by noise pollution is irreversible hearing loss due to ear drum damage.

200 Words Essay On Noise Pollution

Average noise levels are required for daily life, but undesirable noise or noise that is intolerable to people, animals, or plants results in noise pollution in the environment. Noise is a term used to describe the undesired sound produced by many industrial or non-industrial sources that are employed in our daily lives. High-volume sound has detrimental impacts on one's health, especially the ears.

The marine animals, especially whales and dolphins, who rely on their hearing to communicate, find food, defend themselves, and survive in the water, are significantly harmed by high levels of noise, suffering from physical trauma, injuries, bleeding around the brain, large bubbles in organs, and even death. Navy submarine sonar, which can be heard from about 300 miles away, is the cause of the noise in the ocean. The long-term effects of noise pollution are becoming more hazardous and concerning.

Prevention | There are various ways to prevent noise pollution, including encouraging soundproof rooms. Contractors should keep the construction in the industrial sector, industries, and factories away from residential buildings. Damaged exhaust pipes on motorcycles should be repaired.

Government should ban noisy vehicles, airports, bus and train stations, and other transportation hubs should be kept away from residential areas. People should establish quiet zones near educational institutions and hospitals, and more vegetation should be permitted alongside roads and residential areas to reduce noise pollution by absorbing sound.

500 Words Essay On Noise Pollution

The spread of noise with varying implications on human or animal activities is known as noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution. Machines, transportation, and propagation systems are the main global sources of outdoor noise. Noise pollution is carried on by numerous noise sources, both industrial and non-industrial, and it impacts the health of people, plants, and animals in many ways. The lives of current and future generations are in great danger due to noise pollution's steadily rising level.

Sources Of Noise Pollution

Regular social gatherings like weddings, parties, pubs, clubs, discos, or houses of religion, among others, disturb the neighborhood.

Regular construction projects, such as mining and building bridges, dams, stations, highways, and flyovers, entail large machinery that produces a lot of noise.

All industries, large and small, use massive machinery that produces high pitch sound in large quantities, endangering our health and lives. Other machinery used in factories and businesses, such as compressors, generators, exhaust fans, and grinding mills, also makes a lot of noise.

Effects Of Noise Pollution

Because of the undesired sound, noise pollution can lead to various hearing issues, including ear drum damage and hearing loss.

It lowers the ear's receptivity to the sounds needed to control body rhythm.

Aggressive behaviour, disturbed sleep, stress, weakness, exhaustion, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and other severe and chronic health problems in later life are all consequences of noise pollution on psychological health.

It causes communication issues and miscommunication. It impacts animals and increases aggressiveness in dogs.

Marine life and animals are particularly vulnerable to noise pollution. Their behavior may change as a result of it affecting their listening abilities. During migration, these animals have trouble listening, which can negatively affect their survival. When it comes to marine life, noise pollution can cause physical and internal harm.

Legal Aspects Of Controlling Noise Pollution

The government may use a conditional or permanent order to eliminate a public nuisance under Section 133.

Limits for noise exposure in the work zone are outlined in the Factories Act Reduction of Noise and Oil of Machinery.

The Motor Vehicle Act deals with changing faulty engines and using the horn.

Preventive Measures For Noise Pollution

Public awareness should be raised to regulate the hazardous sound level in the environment, and everyone should take the regulations seriously.

Reduce the usage of high-pitched sound generators inside and outside the home, such as at parties, clubs, pubs, and discos.

Planting trees can reduce the noise generated by moving from one location to another, which is another helpful measure.

We must take responsibility for refraining from needless honking. We can reduce noise pollution if strict measures are implemented against those who break this regulation.

Additionally, constructing soundproof walls, windows, and flyovers in homes, buildings, and overpasses can reduce noise.

As noise pollution levels rise, there is an urgent need for greater public awareness of its sources, effects, and preventative measures. In workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, hospitals, etc., excessive noise levels should be prohibited. The issue of noise pollution should be covered in textbooks, and lectures and discussions should be held in educational institutions to create more informed and socially responsible future generations.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

Construction
Entertainment
Manufacturing
Information Technology

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary.

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi .

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive.

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues.

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems.

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description: A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials.

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs.

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story.

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion.

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications.

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product.

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans.

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party.

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems.

Computer Programmer

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Essay on Noise Pollution

In the modern world, the cacophony of sounds from vehicles, industrial activities, and urban development has become a constant backdrop to our lives. This relentless barrage of noise constitutes what we know as noise pollution, an environmental and public health issue that is often overshadowed by other forms of pollution but is equally potent and destructive. This essay delves into the depths of noise pollution, unraveling its causes, impacts, and potential solutions, aiming to shed light on an issue that is powerful in its ability to affect human health, wildlife, and the environment.

Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is defined as any unwanted or harmful sound that disrupts the natural balance and creates potential harm to human and animal life. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified noise pollution as the second-largest environmental cause of health problems, just after the impact of air quality. From the incessant hum of traffic to the roar of airplanes overhead and the clamor of construction sites, noise pollution surrounds us, often so pervasive that many have become desensitized to its presence.

Causes of Noise Pollution

The sources of noise pollution are manifold and predominantly stem from urban development and human activities. Key contributors include:

Transportation Systems: The roar of vehicles, trains, airplanes, and ships are amongst the most significant sources of noise pollution, especially in urban areas.
Industrial and Construction Activities: Factories, construction sites, and mining operations generate substantial noise from machinery and heavy equipment.
Urbanization: The growth of cities brings with it an increase in noise from commercial and residential areas, including sounds from electronic devices, entertainment venues, and human activities.
Social Events: Concerts, festivals, and public gatherings can create high decibel levels, contributing to the noise landscape.

Impacts of Noise Pollution

The power of noise pollution lies in its pervasive ability to impact health and well-being, disrupt wildlife ecosystems, and contribute to societal issues.

Health Effects

Noise pollution is not merely an annoyance; it has profound health implications. Exposure to high levels of noise can lead to:

Hearing Loss: Prolonged exposure to noise levels above 85 decibels can cause permanent hearing damage.
Stress and Cardiovascular Issues: Noise acts as a stressor, triggering the release of stress hormones. Chronic exposure is linked to increased risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke.
Sleep Disturbances: Noise can interrupt sleep patterns and reduce sleep quality, leading to insomnia and other sleep disorders.
Cognitive Impairment: In children, noise pollution can hamper learning and memory, affecting academic performance and cognitive development.

Environmental and Wildlife Effects

Noise pollution extends its reach beyond human health, affecting the natural world in profound ways.

Disruption of Wildlife: Animals rely on sound for communication, navigation, and predator-prey interactions. Noise pollution can interfere with these essential behaviors, leading to adverse effects on reproduction, feeding, and migration patterns.
Ecosystem Imbalance: Excessive noise can alter the natural habitat, causing an imbalance in predator-prey dynamics and affecting biodiversity.

Societal and Economic Impacts

The repercussions of noise pollution also ripple through society and the economy, manifesting as:

Decreased Productivity: Noise can distract and reduce efficiency, affecting workplace productivity and learning environments.
Property Value Decline: Areas subjected to high levels of noise, such as those near airports or highways, often see a decrease in property values.
Increased Healthcare Costs: The health issues associated with noise pollution lead to higher healthcare expenditures for individuals and governments.

Mitigating Noise Pollution

Addressing the issue of noise pollution requires a multifaceted approach, involving policy, technology, and community engagement.

Policy and Regulation

Effective noise pollution management starts with stringent regulatory frameworks that limit noise levels in residential, commercial, and industrial areas. Implementing noise standards for vehicles and machinery, along with zoning laws that separate residential areas from noisy industrial zones, are critical steps.

Technological Innovations

Advancements in technology offer promising solutions to reduce noise pollution. Quieter road surfaces, noise barriers, soundproofing materials in buildings, and the development of electric vehicles can significantly lower noise levels.

Community Engagement and Awareness

Raising awareness about the impact of noise pollution and promoting community involvement in noise reduction initiatives are essential. Simple actions, such as choosing quieter appliances, respecting noise ordinances, and planting trees to serve as natural sound barriers, can make a difference.

In conclusion, Noise pollution is an insidious force with the power to affect human health, disrupt wildlife, and impact societal well-being. Recognizing the seriousness of this issue is the first step towards mitigating its effects. Through a combination of policy intervention, technological innovation, and community action, we can attenuate the impact of noise pollution. By addressing this unseen power, we not only improve our quality of life but also protect the environment and ensure the health and well-being of future generations. In the fight against noise pollution, silence truly is golden.

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Noise Pollution Essay

Introduction.

Do you get irritated when someone honks their car horn while waiting for the traffic signal to turn green? Will you be able to concentrate on your work/studies when heavy construction is taking place near your house and the drilling sound deafens you? These are some of the instances of noise pollution, and we will be discussing more in this noise pollution essay.

Causes of Noise Pollution

There are various factors that cause noise pollution in the environment, and we will understand them through this short essay on noise pollution. We know that technology has eased the life of humans through grinders, compressors, televisions, generators etc., but we are not aware that this same technology is ruining our health. Along with these machines, there are also cars, bikes, buses, trains and aeroplanes that produce a large amount of noise. We will see how this creates pollution through this noise pollution essay.

People unnecessarily use horns, and the long siren disturbs other people. Besides, people play music at a loud volume while travelling in cars or buses. Due to this, we put others in an inconvenient position. It is only required to think of the commotion that happens during weddings and other festivals and how it causes a nuisance to those residing nearby to understand the seriousness of the matter. The noise pollution essay in English is, therefore, an attempt to throw light on this issue.

Ways to Reduce Noise Pollution

Noise pollution is a serious concern, and hence, we must try to prevent it. But before we see how it can be controlled, we will see its effect on us in this short essay on noise pollution. Noise pollution causes hearing problems if we get exposed to a high volume of sounds continuously. It also has the potential to damage our eardrums, resulting in permanent loss of hearing.

Moreover, it disturbs our state of mind, and we might experience stress, tension, loss of sleep etc., thus affecting our psychological health. All these reasons point out that noise pollution can be dangerous and we must follow certain measures to prevent it.

First of all, we must be responsible for not honking unnecessarily. If strict actions are taken against the violators of this rule, we can reduce noise pollution to some extent. Besides, installing soundproof walls and windows in houses, buildings and flyovers can also help in bringing down the noise level.

Planting trees is another effective measure as we can reduce the noise from travelling from one place to another. So, children can write an essay on noise pollution 150 words by taking important points from the noise pollution essay in English and thus creating awareness regarding the issue. For more interesting essays , you can refer to our website.

Frequently Asked Questions on Noise Pollution Essay

What are the effects of noise pollution.

Noise pollution creates many health issues in humans and affects their hearing ability. Hypertension, stress, irregular sleep patterns and irritation are its other effects. Noise pollution also harms wildlife and marine life as it impairs their listening abilities.

How to reduce noise pollution?

People can wear earplugs or earmuffs while working in factories that produce a high level of noise daily. Car horns must not be used needlessly and playing loud music on public transport should be banned. Planting more trees can also reduce noise pollution to some extent, as vegetation helps in the reduction of sound intensity.

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Essay on Ways of Reducing Noise Pollution

Students are often asked to write an essay on Ways of Reducing Noise Pollution in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Ways of Reducing Noise Pollution

Understanding noise pollution.

Noise pollution refers to harmful levels of noise that cause discomfort and harm to living beings. This problem is often overlooked but can lead to health issues like stress and sleep disorders.

Reducing Noise at Home

At home, we can reduce noise pollution by using quieter appliances, soundproofing rooms, and regulating the volume of music or television.

Community Efforts

In our communities, we can advocate for noise control regulations, promote the use of silent zones, and encourage public awareness about the harmful effects of noise pollution.

Industrial Measures

Industries can help by using noise-reducing technologies, maintaining machinery properly, and limiting the use of loud equipment to specific times.

Remember, every little effort counts in reducing noise pollution.

250 Words Essay on Ways of Reducing Noise Pollution

Introduction.

Noise pollution, an often overlooked form of environmental degradation, is a growing concern in our increasingly urbanized and industrialized world. It not only affects human well-being but also has deleterious impacts on wildlife and ecosystems. To mitigate this issue, we need to adopt a multi-pronged approach.

Urban Planning

Urban planning plays a pivotal role in reducing noise pollution. City layouts should be designed to minimize noise exposure to residential areas. This could involve zoning laws that separate industrial and residential areas, or the creation of ‘quiet zones’ in urban spaces. In addition, the use of noise barriers, like walls or earth mounds, can significantly reduce noise levels.

Technological Advancements

Technological advancements offer another avenue for noise reduction. Industries can adopt quieter machinery and equipment, while vehicle manufacturers can design engines and exhaust systems to minimize noise. Additionally, the use of noise-cancelling technology in public and private spaces can help to create quieter environments.

Legislative Measures

Legislation is an effective tool in the fight against noise pollution. Governments can enact laws that set maximum permissible noise levels for different areas and times. These laws should be backed by strong enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance.

Public Awareness

Finally, public awareness is crucial. People need to understand the harmful effects of noise pollution and their role in combating it. This could involve educational campaigns, community initiatives, or individual actions like using headphones instead of speakers.

In conclusion, reducing noise pollution requires a combination of urban planning, technological advancements, legislative measures, and public awareness. By adopting these strategies, we can create quieter, healthier environments for all.

500 Words Essay on Ways of Reducing Noise Pollution

Noise pollution, an often overlooked form of environmental degradation, has profound impacts on human health and ecosystem balance. It is a byproduct of industrialization, urbanization, and modern civilization. However, its adverse effects can be mitigated through a variety of strategies. This essay explores ways of reducing noise pollution, aiming to promote a quieter, healthier, and more sustainable environment.

Public Awareness and Education

One of the first steps towards noise pollution control is raising public awareness and education. People need to understand noise pollution’s impact on health and the environment to take active measures to reduce it. This can be achieved through public campaigns, workshops, and incorporating noise pollution topics in school curriculums.

Legal and Regulatory Measures

Governments play a crucial role in noise pollution reduction by enforcing laws and regulations. Areas near schools, hospitals, and residential areas can be declared as noise-sensitive zones, with restrictions on noise levels. Strict penalties for violations can deter noise pollution culprits. Additionally, governments can set noise standards for industries and vehicles, ensuring they operate within acceptable noise limits.

Use of Noise Barriers

Noise barriers are effective tools in reducing noise pollution from highways and industrial areas. These barriers, made of earth mounds, concrete walls, or other sound-absorbing materials, can significantly reduce noise levels. In residential areas, strategic planting of trees and shrubs can act as natural sound barriers.

Technological Innovations

Technological advancements can help reduce noise at its source. Industries can adopt quieter machinery and equipment, while vehicle manufacturers can design engines that produce less noise. In the construction sector, using noise-controlled tools and scheduling noisy operations for times with the least potential to disturb people can significantly cut down noise pollution.

Personal Measures

Individuals can also contribute to noise pollution reduction. Simple actions like keeping the volume of music devices low, using earphones, and reducing the use of noisy appliances can make a difference. In addition, promoting a culture of silence and respect for others’ peace can go a long way in reducing noise pollution.

Noise pollution is a pressing issue that requires collective effort to tackle. Through a combination of public awareness, legal measures, use of noise barriers, technological innovations, and personal measures, we can significantly reduce noise pollution. The fight against noise pollution is not just about creating a quieter environment, but also about promoting human health and preserving ecological balance. As we move towards a more environmentally conscious society, reducing noise pollution should be one of our top priorities.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Water
Essay on Voting Rights
Essay on Volunteering

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Essay on Noise Pollution for Students in 1000 Words

In this article, we have published an Essay on Noise Pollution for Students in 1000 Words with Its Facts, Causes, Effects, and Control Steps.

Table of Contents

Essay on Noise Pollution (1000 Words)

Due to the improvement of technology, Sound pollution is increasing day by day, and it is becoming a major threat to Human Survival.

What Is Noise Pollution? (Introduction)

Noise Pollution has become a significant threat to our times. The Increase in Urbanization, Transportation (All Formats), the Problem of Sound Pollution is a severe and multidimensional threat in the process of growth and development.

Since Thirty years, the world has been facing a deadly menace for physical and mental health, resulting in the malfunction of the same human body areas. Major Causes are Air Transport, Rail Transport, Road Transport, Starting the Trucks, hard music and Harley Davidson Bikes.

The natural effects on areas of concern are Sleeplessness hearing damage works environment. Overall, the Increase in Sound Pollution is a major threat to humans and other species.

Facts about Noise Pollution

These are some important facts about Noise Pollution-

The Chief Sources of Noise Pollution is from Air, Rail & Road Transport, which is the regular feature in all cities and even Rural Areas in India.
The other source is from political meetings, religious establishments, Television, and entertainment, barking dogs round the clock Transport is a Common phenomenon. Several studies in the U.S. have found that working in Sound Pollution doubles human body stress.
Industrial establishments, aero drums, Bus Complexes, Railway Tracks, and Industrial Cyran’s are the never-ending source of Sound Pollution in our Country and worldwide. In the ’80s, the U.S. Population and Airplanes ratio was 1,000:400, followed by Japan. Noise Pollution has been a continuous phenomenon since World War II worldwide and is high in developed countries as of now.

Causes of Noise Pollution

Noise Pollution of Two types Community Noise and Industrial Equipment Sound comprises domestic sources like Refrigerator, Juice-mixer Grinder, T.V, Washing Machine and Gas Cooker, etc. The industrial sound includes Vehicles on Road, Construction Activities, Fireworks and Loudspeakers from Religious and Political Activities.

Noise Pollution from the Industrial sector comprises engineering companies, printing presses, Textile mills, and metal works.
N. P. From Transport systems, Alarm & Social events: Sound from Vehicles through Air, Road, Railway and Water Transport, alarms systems from Ambulances, VIP Vehicles & Fire Brigades. Social events like Marriages, parties, Pubs, Worship places are the Chief sources; rule-breaking on all fronts is a continuous threat to daily life.
Defence, Construction and Miscellaneous Sources: Defense equipment like Tanks, Explosion, Military aircraft, shooting exercises, launching of Rockets, Jet Plans creates Loud Sound, Construction in Residential areas is typical, and Construction of Roads, Flyover Bridges, and dams generate more Sound Pollution The other sources, like cutting of stones, mountains, automobile repair shops, blasting, Bulldozing, are the main activities of Noise Pollution

Effects of Noise Pollution

Some major effects were briefed as under- .

The Term “Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) is used for the people who are prone to loud sounds, which are measured as 25% in the United States. Nearly 30 Million affected by hazardous sounds, mining Industry, manufacturing, and construction are shared for Sound Pollution, and hearing loss is a regular feature in older people.
In Germany, the effect of Noise Pollution on children is resulting in memory loss and reading impairment; the other feature is the baby understanding sounds in impact due to the sounds of T.V. or radio and acting as a barrier to learning the primary language.
In Tokyo, U.S. Military base is causing a vast noise resulting in irregular Blood pressures because of sounds resulting from winning thousands of Dollars as a lawsuit against the U.S. Air force.
In India, Noise Pollution is causing two types, namely Auditory effects and Non-Auditory effects. The latter is causing Auditory Fatigue and Deafness the Non-Auditory is resulting in Annoyance, Lack of working efficiency, Interference in speech communication and physical disorder like increase in Heartbeats, B.P.etc.,

How to Control Noise Pollution?

1. In March 2011, the central pollution control board established the first part of the Noise Pollution Monitoring network in 35 major cities. The second and third phases will cover around 160 cities in India.

2. The GOI had introduced the Environmental protection Act, Noise Pollution(Regulation and Control) Rules 2000,

Noise standards
Restrict the use of Loudspeakers
Restrict the over usage of horns, use of Constructions and Firecrackers
Allotting responsibility to state pollution to take adequate measures etc.,

3. WHO Report to U.N. Conference on Environment listed the problems of Sound Pollution and measures to control, the features are:

Design and Fabrication of Silencing devices for Aircraft, Industrial, and Domestic Appliances.
Change in the Design and operations of machines, vibration control, soundproof cabins, and sound-absorbing materials can reduce it.
Sound-reducing limit to vehicular traffic, ban on honking horns, industrial establishments amusement areas, residential areas, and creation of Silent Zones near schools, hospitals, and residential areas.
Control of Indoor noise to 6dB in locating the buildings, trees, and shrubs may be planted in front of the building to provide some absorption.
Locate Bedrooms and living rooms on the quiet side whereas kitchen, bathrooms, and elevators on Noisy Sides

To reduce Noise pollution, we must create vegetation buffer zones in different parts of the city. There is an urgent need to form legislation to control Sound pollution and educate through Radio, T.V., and Newsreels in cinemas about Noise Pollution.

Its effects on human beings and, above all, Public participation and control is possible by the people’s participation to curb the menace for sustainable and healthy life on earth. Noise Pollution can only be curbed other than any pollution prevailing. I hope this essay on noise pollution helped in your project.

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Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment . These harmful materials are called pollutants . Pollutants can be natural, such as volcanic ash . They can also be created by human activity, such as trash or runoff produced by factories. Pollutants damage the quality of air, water, and land. Many things that are useful to people produce pollution. Cars spew pollutants from their exhaust pipes. Burning coal to create electricity pollutes the air. Industries and homes generate garbage and sewage that can pollute the land and water. Pesticides —chemical poisons used to kill weeds and insects— seep into waterways and harm wildlife . All living things—from one-celled microbes to blue whales—depend on Earth ’s supply of air and water. When these resources are polluted, all forms of life are threatened. Pollution is a global problem. Although urban areas are usually more polluted than the countryside, pollution can spread to remote places where no people live. For example, pesticides and other chemicals have been found in the Antarctic ice sheet . In the middle of the northern Pacific Ocean, a huge collection of microscopic plastic particles forms what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch . Air and water currents carry pollution. Ocean currents and migrating fish carry marine pollutants far and wide. Winds can pick up radioactive material accidentally released from a nuclear reactor and scatter it around the world. Smoke from a factory in one country drifts into another country. In the past, visitors to Big Bend National Park in the U.S. state of Texas could see 290 kilometers (180 miles) across the vast landscape . Now, coal-burning power plants in Texas and the neighboring state of Chihuahua, Mexico have spewed so much pollution into the air that visitors to Big Bend can sometimes see only 50 kilometers (30 miles). The three major types of pollution are air pollution , water pollution , and land pollution . Air Pollution Sometimes, air pollution is visible . A person can see dark smoke pour from the exhaust pipes of large trucks or factories, for example. More often, however, air pollution is invisible . Polluted air can be dangerous, even if the pollutants are invisible. It can make people’s eyes burn and make them have difficulty breathing. It can also increase the risk of lung cancer . Sometimes, air pollution kills quickly. In 1984, an accident at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released a deadly gas into the air. At least 8,000 people died within days. Hundreds of thou sands more were permanently injured. Natural disasters can also cause air pollution to increase quickly. When volcanoes erupt , they eject volcanic ash and gases into the atmosphere . Volcanic ash can discolor the sky for months. After the eruption of the Indonesian volcano of Krakatoa in 1883, ash darkened the sky around the world. The dimmer sky caused fewer crops to be harvested as far away as Europe and North America. For years, meteorologists tracked what was known as the “equatorial smoke stream .” In fact, this smoke stream was a jet stream , a wind high in Earth’s atmosphere that Krakatoa’s air pollution made visible. Volcanic gases , such as sulfur dioxide , can kill nearby residents and make the soil infertile for years. Mount Vesuvius, a volcano in Italy, famously erupted in 79, killing hundreds of residents of the nearby towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Most victims of Vesuvius were not killed by lava or landslides caused by the eruption. They were choked, or asphyxiated , by deadly volcanic gases. In 1986, a toxic cloud developed over Lake Nyos, Cameroon. Lake Nyos sits in the crater of a volcano. Though the volcano did not erupt, it did eject volcanic gases into the lake. The heated gases passed through the water of the lake and collected as a cloud that descended the slopes of the volcano and into nearby valleys . As the toxic cloud moved across the landscape, it killed birds and other organisms in their natural habitat . This air pollution also killed thousands of cattle and as many as 1,700 people. Most air pollution is not natural, however. It comes from burning fossil fuels —coal, oil , and natural gas . When gasoline is burned to power cars and trucks, it produces carbon monoxide , a colorless, odorless gas. The gas is harmful in high concentrations , or amounts. City traffic produces highly concentrated carbon monoxide. Cars and factories produce other common pollutants, including nitrogen oxide , sulfur dioxide, and hydrocarbons . These chemicals react with sunlight to produce smog , a thick fog or haze of air pollution. The smog is so thick in Linfen, China, that people can seldom see the sun. Smog can be brown or grayish blue, depending on which pollutants are in it. Smog makes breathing difficult, especially for children and older adults. Some cities that suffer from extreme smog issue air pollution warnings. The government of Hong Kong, for example, will warn people not to go outside or engage in strenuous physical activity (such as running or swimming) when smog is very thick.

When air pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide mix with moisture, they change into acids . They then fall back to earth as acid rain . Wind often carries acid rain far from the pollution source. Pollutants produced by factories and power plants in Spain can fall as acid rain in Norway. Acid rain can kill all the trees in a forest . It can also devastate lakes, streams, and other waterways. When lakes become acidic, fish can’t survive . In Sweden, acid rain created thousands of “ dead lakes ,” where fish no longer live. Acid rain also wears away marble and other kinds of stone . It has erased the words on gravestones and damaged many historic buildings and monuments . The Taj Mahal , in Agra, India, was once gleaming white. Years of exposure to acid rain has left it pale. Governments have tried to prevent acid rain by limiting the amount of pollutants released into the air. In Europe and North America, they have had some success, but acid rain remains a major problem in the developing world , especially Asia. Greenhouse gases are another source of air pollution. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane occur naturally in the atmosphere. In fact, they are necessary for life on Earth. They absorb sunlight reflected from Earth, preventing it from escaping into space. By trapping heat in the atmosphere, they keep Earth warm enough for people to live. This is called the greenhouse effect . But human activities such as burning fossil fuels and destroying forests have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This has increased the greenhouse effect, and average temperatures across the globe are rising. The decade that began in the year 2000 was the warmest on record. This increase in worldwide average temperatures, caused in part by human activity, is called global warming . Global warming is causing ice sheets and glaciers to melt. The melting ice is causing sea levels to rise at a rate of two millimeters (0.09 inches) per year. The rising seas will eventually flood low-lying coastal regions . Entire nations, such as the islands of Maldives, are threatened by this climate change . Global warming also contributes to the phenomenon of ocean acidification . Ocean acidification is the process of ocean waters absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Fewer organisms can survive in warmer, less salty waters. The ocean food web is threatened as plants and animals such as coral fail to adapt to more acidic oceans. Scientists have predicted that global warming will cause an increase in severe storms . It will also cause more droughts in some regions and more flooding in others. The change in average temperatures is already shrinking some habitats, the regions where plants and animals naturally live. Polar bears hunt seals from sea ice in the Arctic. The melting ice is forcing polar bears to travel farther to find food , and their numbers are shrinking. People and governments can respond quickly and effectively to reduce air pollution. Chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are a dangerous form of air pollution that governments worked to reduce in the 1980s and 1990s. CFCs are found in gases that cool refrigerators, in foam products, and in aerosol cans . CFCs damage the ozone layer , a region in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The ozone layer protects Earth by absorbing much of the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation . When people are exposed to more ultraviolet radiation, they are more likely to develop skin cancer, eye diseases, and other illnesses. In the 1980s, scientists noticed that the ozone layer over Antarctica was thinning. This is often called the “ ozone hole .” No one lives permanently in Antarctica. But Australia, the home of more than 22 million people, lies at the edge of the hole. In the 1990s, the Australian government began an effort to warn people of the dangers of too much sun. Many countries, including the United States, now severely limit the production of CFCs. Water Pollution Some polluted water looks muddy, smells bad, and has garbage floating in it. Some polluted water looks clean, but is filled with harmful chemicals you can’t see or smell. Polluted water is unsafe for drinking and swimming. Some people who drink polluted water are exposed to hazardous chemicals that may make them sick years later. Others consume bacteria and other tiny aquatic organisms that cause disease. The United Nations estimates that 4,000 children die every day from drinking dirty water. Sometimes, polluted water harms people indirectly. They get sick because the fish that live in polluted water are unsafe to eat. They have too many pollutants in their flesh. There are some natural sources of water pollution. Oil and natural gas, for example, can leak into oceans and lakes from natural underground sources. These sites are called petroleum seeps . The world’s largest petroleum seep is the Coal Oil Point Seep, off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The Coal Oil Point Seep releases so much oil that tar balls wash up on nearby beaches . Tar balls are small, sticky pieces of pollution that eventually decompose in the ocean.

Human activity also contributes to water pollution. Chemicals and oils from factories are sometimes dumped or seep into waterways. These chemicals are called runoff. Chemicals in runoff can create a toxic environment for aquatic life. Runoff can also help create a fertile environment for cyanobacteria , also called blue-green algae . Cyanobacteria reproduce rapidly, creating a harmful algal bloom (HAB) . Harmful algal blooms prevent organisms such as plants and fish from living in the ocean. They are associated with “ dead zones ” in the world’s lakes and rivers, places where little life exists below surface water. Mining and drilling can also contribute to water pollution. Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major contributor to pollution of rivers and streams near coal mines . Acid helps miners remove coal from the surrounding rocks . The acid is washed into streams and rivers, where it reacts with rocks and sand. It releases chemical sulfur from the rocks and sand, creating a river rich in sulfuric acid . Sulfuric acid is toxic to plants, fish, and other aquatic organisms. Sulfuric acid is also toxic to people, making rivers polluted by AMD dangerous sources of water for drinking and hygiene . Oil spills are another source of water pollution. In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing oil to gush from the ocean floor. In the following months, hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spewed into the gulf waters. The spill produced large plumes of oil under the sea and an oil slick on the surface as large as 24,000 square kilometers (9,100 square miles). The oil slick coated wetlands in the U.S. states of Louisiana and Mississippi, killing marsh plants and aquatic organisms such as crabs and fish. Birds, such as pelicans , became coated in oil and were unable to fly or access food. More than two million animals died as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Buried chemical waste can also pollute water supplies. For many years, people disposed of chemical wastes carelessly, not realizing its dangers. In the 1970s, people living in the Love Canal area in Niagara Falls, New York, suffered from extremely high rates of cancer and birth defects . It was discovered that a chemical waste dump had poisoned the area’s water. In 1978, 800 families living in Love Canal had to a bandon their homes. If not disposed of properly, radioactive waste from nuclear power plants can escape into the environment. Radioactive waste can harm living things and pollute the water. Sewage that has not been properly treated is a common source of water pollution. Many cities around the world have poor sewage systems and sewage treatment plants. Delhi, the capital of India, is home to more than 21 million people. More than half the sewage and other waste produced in the city are dumped into the Yamuna River. This pollution makes the river dangerous to use as a source of water for drinking or hygiene. It also reduces the river’s fishery , resulting in less food for the local community. A major source of water pollution is fertilizer used in agriculture . Fertilizer is material added to soil to make plants grow larger and faster. Fertilizers usually contain large amounts of the elements nitrogen and phosphorus , which help plants grow. Rainwater washes fertilizer into streams and lakes. There, the nitrogen and phosphorus cause cyanobacteria to form harmful algal blooms. Rain washes other pollutants into streams and lakes. It picks up animal waste from cattle ranches. Cars drip oil onto the street, and rain carries it into storm drains , which lead to waterways such as rivers and seas. Rain sometimes washes chemical pesticides off of plants and into streams. Pesticides can also seep into groundwater , the water beneath the surface of the Earth. Heat can pollute water. Power plants, for example, produce a huge amount of heat. Power plants are often located on rivers so they can use the water as a coolant . Cool water circulates through the plant, absorbing heat. The heated water is then returned to the river. Aquatic creatures are sensitive to changes in temperature. Some fish, for example, can only live in cold water. Warmer river temperatures prevent fish eggs from hatching. Warmer river water also contributes to harmful algal blooms. Another type of water pollution is simple garbage. The Citarum River in Indonesia, for example, has so much garbage floating in it that you cannot see the water. Floating trash makes the river difficult to fish in. Aquatic animals such as fish and turtles mistake trash, such as plastic bags, for food. Plastic bags and twine can kill many ocean creatures. Chemical pollutants in trash can also pollute the water, making it toxic for fish and people who use the river as a source of drinking water. The fish that are caught in a polluted river often have high levels of chemical toxins in their flesh. People absorb these toxins as they eat the fish. Garbage also fouls the ocean. Many plastic bottles and other pieces of trash are thrown overboard from boats. The wind blows trash out to sea. Ocean currents carry plastics and other floating trash to certain places on the globe, where it cannot escape. The largest of these areas, called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. According to some estimates, this garbage patch is the size of Texas. The trash is a threat to fish and seabirds, which mistake the plastic for food. Many of the plastics are covered with chemical pollutants. Land Pollution Many of the same pollutants that foul the water also harm the land. Mining sometimes leaves the soil contaminated with dangerous chemicals. Pesticides and fertilizers from agricultural fields are blown by the wind. They can harm plants, animals, and sometimes people. Some fruits and vegetables absorb the pesticides that help them grow. When people consume the fruits and vegetables, the pesticides enter their bodies. Some pesticides can cause cancer and other diseases. A pesticide called DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was once commonly used to kill insects, especially mosquitoes. In many parts of the world, mosquitoes carry a disease called malaria , which kills a million people every year. Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Muller was awarded the Nobel Prize for his understanding of how DDT can control insects and other pests. DDT is responsible for reducing malaria in places such as Taiwan and Sri Lanka. In 1962, American biologist Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring , which discussed the dangers of DDT. She argued that it could contribute to cancer in humans. She also explained how it was destroying bird eggs, which caused the number of bald eagles, brown pelicans, and ospreys to drop. In 1972, the United States banned the use of DDT. Many other countries also banned it. But DDT didn’t disappear entirely. Today, many governments support the use of DDT because it remains the most effective way to combat malaria. Trash is another form of land pollution. Around the world, paper, cans, glass jars, plastic products, and junked cars and appliances mar the landscape. Litter makes it difficult for plants and other producers in the food web to create nutrients . Animals can die if they mistakenly eat plastic. Garbage often contains dangerous pollutants such as oils, chemicals, and ink. These pollutants can leech into the soil and harm plants, animals, and people. Inefficient garbage collection systems contribute to land pollution. Often, the garbage is picked up and brought to a dump, or landfill . Garbage is buried in landfills. Sometimes, communities produce so much garbage that their landfills are filling up. They are running out of places to dump their trash. A massive landfill near Quezon City, Philippines, was the site of a land pollution tragedy in 2000. Hundreds of people lived on the slopes of the Quezon City landfill. These people made their living from recycling and selling items found in the landfill. However, the landfill was not secure. Heavy rains caused a trash landslide, killing 218 people. Sometimes, landfills are not completely sealed off from the land around them. Pollutants from the landfill leak into the earth in which they are buried. Plants that grow in the earth may be contaminated, and the herbivores that eat the plants also become contaminated. So do the predators that consume the herbivores. This process, where a chemical builds up in each level of the food web, is called bioaccumulation . Pollutants leaked from landfills also leak into local groundwater supplies. There, the aquatic food web (from microscopic algae to fish to predators such as sharks or eagles) can suffer from bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals. Some communities do not have adequate garbage collection systems, and trash lines the side of roads. In other places, garbage washes up on beaches. Kamilo Beach, in the U.S. state of Hawai'i, is littered with plastic bags and bottles carried in by the tide . The trash is dangerous to ocean life and reduces economic activity in the area. Tourism is Hawai'i’s largest industry . Polluted beaches discourage tourists from investing in the area’s hotels, restaurants, and recreational activities. Some cities incinerate , or burn, their garbage. Incinerating trash gets rid of it, but it can release dangerous heavy metals and chemicals into the air. So while trash incinerators can help with the problem of land pollution, they sometimes add to the problem of air pollution. Reducing Pollution Around the world, people and governments are making efforts to combat pollution. Recycling, for instance, is becoming more common. In recycling, trash is processed so its useful materials can be used again. Glass, aluminum cans, and many types of plastic can be melted and reused . Paper can be broken down and turned into new paper. Recycling reduces the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills, incinerators, and waterways. Austria and Switzerland have the highest recycling rates. These nations recycle between 50 and 60 percent of their garbage. The United States recycles about 30 percent of its garbage. Governments can combat pollution by passing laws that limit the amount and types of chemicals factories and agribusinesses are allowed to use. The smoke from coal-burning power plants can be filtered. People and businesses that illegally dump pollutants into the land, water, and air can be fined for millions of dollars. Some government programs, such as the Superfund program in the United States, can force polluters to clean up the sites they polluted. International agreements can also reduce pollution. The Kyoto Protocol , a United Nations agreement to limit the emission of greenhouse gases, has been signed by 191 countries. The United States, the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases, did not sign the agreement. Other countries, such as China, the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, have not met their goals. Still, many gains have been made. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River, in the U.S. state of Ohio, was so clogged with oil and trash that it caught on fire. The fire helped spur the Clean Water Act of 1972. This law limited what pollutants could be released into water and set standards for how clean water should be. Today, the Cuyahoga River is much cleaner. Fish have returned to regions of the river where they once could not survive. But even as some rivers are becoming cleaner, others are becoming more polluted. As countries around the world become wealthier, some forms of pollution increase. Countries with growing economies usually need more power plants, which produce more pollutants. Reducing pollution requires environmental, political, and economic leadership. Developed nations must work to reduce and recycle their materials, while developing nations must work to strengthen their economies without destroying the environment. Developed and developing countries must work together toward the common goal of protecting the environment for future use.

How Long Does It Last? Different materials decompose at different rates. How long does it take for these common types of trash to break down?

Paper: 2-4 weeks
Orange peel: 6 months
Milk carton: 5 years
Plastic bag: 15 years
Tin can: 100 years
Plastic bottle: 450 years
Glass bottle: 500 years
Styrofoam: Never

Indoor Air Pollution The air inside your house can be polluted. Air and carpet cleaners, insect sprays, and cigarettes are all sources of indoor air pollution.

Light Pollution Light pollution is the excess amount of light in the night sky. Light pollution, also called photopollution, is almost always found in urban areas. Light pollution can disrupt ecosystems by confusing the distinction between night and day. Nocturnal animals, those that are active at night, may venture out during the day, while diurnal animals, which are active during daylight hours, may remain active well into the night. Feeding and sleep patterns may be confused. Light pollution also indicates an excess use of energy. The dark-sky movement is a campaign by people to reduce light pollution. This would reduce energy use, allow ecosystems to function more normally, and allow scientists and stargazers to observe the atmosphere.

Noise Pollution Noise pollution is the constant presence of loud, disruptive noises in an area. Usually, noise pollution is caused by construction or nearby transportation facilities, such as airports. Noise pollution is unpleasant, and can be dangerous. Some songbirds, such as robins, are unable to communicate or find food in the presence of heavy noise pollution. The sound waves produced by some noise pollutants can disrupt the sonar used by marine animals to communicate or locate food.

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Sailing events could harm marine life due to underwater noise, study finds

Acoustic noise levels were checked near the course of the America’s Cup in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, in 2021.

International sailing events could be harming marine wildlife because of underwater noise pollution from vessels, researchers have warned.

Marine mammals, fishes and invertebrates which rely on intricate hearing systems for processes to forage, communicate, reproduce, and avoid predators, could be harmed by sustained noise from hundreds of motorised boats, a study has found.

Research led by Heriot-Watt University’s Institute of Life and Earth Sciences in Edinburgh found that noise from large groups of spectator boats was loud and sustained for long enough to cause stress and even force marine life out of natural habitats.

Thousands of sailing regattas are staged around the world every year but researchers said that events should make greater efforts to limit the potential impacts of underwater noise from motorised vessels.

Sailing – Americas Cup – Day One – Portsmouth

The research, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, involved collecting and measuring acoustic recordings around racecourses during the 36th America’s Cup in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, in 2021.

The international yachting race – the world’s largest competitive sailing event – has been staged since 1851 and attracted almost 300,000 in-person visitors.

An estimated 10,468 vessels attended the three different race events between December 2020 and March 2021, with around 300 vessels a day sailing to and from the racecourses at regular intervals, according to researchers.

The findings were published in a paper, Not so silent spectators: How spectator vessels at international sailing regattas alter marine soundscapes.

Sound level increases were noted several kilometres beyond the racecourse’s boundaries and remained high well beyond the duration of the races.

On a typical race day, sound levels around the racecourse were five decibels higher than when no racing took place – roughly more than three times normal sound energy levels.

Protection measures taken by event organisers, such as restricting spectator vessel speeds to five knots to reduce the risk of striking marine mammals, will also have helped reduce underwater noise levels, it was acknowledged.

However, ideas for further improvements included introducing designated areas for spectator vessels, as well as using marine mammal detection platforms to identify visually, or acoustically, when animals are nearby, so best noise practices could be adopted.

Staggering the exit to break up spectator flotillas into smaller groups, encouraging spectators to watch from land locations, and guidance on behavioural changes to reduce the amount of noise from their vessels were also suggested – including avoiding sudden speed changes.

Matt Pine, an honorary research fellow at Heriot-Watt’s School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, said: “When sailing events like larger regattas are being planned, the potential impact of underwater noise pollution from spectator flotillas should be considered, especially for events happening in ecologically significant areas.

“Underwater noise from motorised vessels is particularly problematic, as studies have found it increases stress levels in many marine species and can reduce their success in reproduction, foraging and social interactions.

Mr Pine, a marine scientist specialising in ocean bioacoustics – the science of how sound affects animals – has a PhD in Marine Science from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

He added: “Noise pollution can also cause some species to avoid or move away from their original habitats.”

America’s Cup organisers have been contacted for comment.

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Microplastic 'hotspots' identified in Long Island Sound

by Staffordshire University

Forensic and environmental experts have teamed up to develop a new scientific method to pinpoint microplastic pollution 'hotspots' in open waters. A study by Staffordshire University, The Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, and Central Wyoming College trialed the technique in New York's Long Island Sound.

Professor Claire Gwinnett from Staffordshire University explained, "Long Island Sound was a location of interest because it has lots of factors that can cause pollution.

"It is an estuary that has high populations of wildlife, it is a busy transport route frequented by cargo ships and is a popular fishing area. Located adjacent to New York City, it is also highly populated and a major tourist destination."

The study saw samples collected from the deck of the 60′ oceanographic sailing research vessel American Promise. The team took 1 liter 'grab samples' of surface water every 3 miles from the East River along the middle of Long Island Sound to The Race, where it meets Rhode Island Sound.

Grab sampling allows analysis of specific locations, with the researchers applying a statistical approach to identify hotspots where microplastics were most in evidence.

"People often use the term 'hotspot', but it is not scientifically defined. Previous studies have used largely subjective methods, without the use of any rules or thresholds that differentiate hotspots from non-hotspots," Professor Gwinnett said.

"Our study proposed a simple yet objective method for determining hotspots using standard deviation values. This is the first time that this has been done."

Two primary and two secondary hotspots were observed, near either end of the sampling area. There is potentially a "bottleneck" effect in the narrower zones or, conversely, a dilution effect in the wider section of Long Island Sound. Similarly, hotspots were observed as being close to or in line with a river mouth, specifically the Thames and Connecticut Rivers.

Overlaying heat maps of various types of shipping and vessel traffic with the microparticle heat map from this study show potential similarities. In particular, between areas of high recreational and passenger vessel traffic and higher microplastic concentration.

Professor Gwinnett said, "We need to consider factors that might influence these results, such as population, geography, and human use. The identified hotspots, however, were found in both densely populated areas and adjacent to some of the least densely populated land areas surrounding Long Island Sound.

"The first step in combating this type of pollution is by characterizing microparticle samples so that we can begin to understand where they might have come from."

97% of samples contained man-made particulates. Microparticles were classified as 76.14% fibers and 23.86% fragments. 47.76% of the fibers were synthetic, and 52.24% were non-synthetic.

Forensic science approaches developed by Staffordshire University were used to analyze the microparticles—including type, color, shape, material, presence of declustering, and width—which identified 30 unique categories of potential sources of pollution.

Rachael Miller, Expedition lead and Rozalia Project Founder explained, "Unlike larger fragments of plastic, which may exhibit clear features that easily identify its original sources, such as bottle cap ridges or a partial logo, this is generally very difficult for microparticles unless an analysis approach which fully characterizes the particle is used."

"Identifying a specific type of item from which a microparticle came, e.g., a pair of jeans, carpet, tire, or personal hygiene product, increases the likelihood of discovering the mechanism for transport to the environment. That, in turn, increases opportunities to prevent a subset of microplastic pollution."

The authors are now calling for reference databases of potential pollutants of waterways. Ph.D. researcher Amy Osbourne specializes in forensic fiber analysis at Staffordshire University after progressing from the undergraduate degree in Forensic Investigation.

She said, "We cannot confidently identify the sources of pollution without being able to cross reference samples against large, easily searched known provenance databases. Such databases are already used in forensic science when identifying sources of evidence found at crime scenes."

"For example, we might begin with a database of all the different types of fishing nets or tarpaulins that we know are commonly used in areas like Long Island Sound."

Professor Gwinnett added, "While more research is needed to understand microplastic concentrations and implications of this pollution fully, the very presence is enough to engage in solution development and solution deployment."

The findings are published in the journal Regional Studies in Marine Science .

Provided by Staffordshire University

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This Fort Worth spot is named most peaceful in Texas and among the quietest in U.S.

Noise pollution is a health threat, but quiet places exist even in cities..

Fort Worth's Japanese Garden, a longtime urban escape, is the most peaceful spot in Texas...

By Sarah Bahari

8:01 AM on Apr 10, 2024 CDT

Not far from the hum of a highway, winding paths dot a Fort Worth garden lush with cherry and magnolia trees, where bridges overlook ponds filled with Koi fish.

Fort Worth’s Japanese Garden — a longtime urban escape — is the most peaceful spot in Texas and one of the quietest city spots in the U.S., according to an environmental nonprofit.

Earth.fm , which says it’s like Spotify but for nature sounds, set out to identify the quietest places in some of the world’s largest and loudest cities. It released its findings ahead of Earth Day on April 22.

The World Health Organization has called noise pollution an “underestimated threat” that can have numerous short- and long-term health consequences, including sleep disturbance, cardiovascular effects, hearing impairment and poor work and school performance.

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“Opportunities to connect with nature and find quiet — away from traffic noise, pneumatic drills, and the general city buzz — are so important for our mental wellbeing,” Catalin Zorzini, founder of Earth.fm , said in a statement. “We could say it’s also crucial for the wellbeing of our planet, which is suffering mostly because we have grown so disconnected from it.”

Tucked inside the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, the 7.5 acre-Japanese Garden was completed in 1973

To compile the list, Earth.fm used Census data to rank cities by noise level. In Fort Worth, 6.1% of residents are exposed to high noise levels throughout an average day, making it the 27th-noisiest city in the U.S. Dallas is the country’s 45th-noisiest city, with 5% of the population exposed to high noise on an average day. The group defined excessive noise as anything above 65 decibels. For comparison, 70 decibels is equivalent to the sound of a washing machine or dishwasher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Earth.fm then developed a list of 3,000 parks, nature preserves and gardens across 245 cities worldwide, giving each park a quiet score based on online reviews, visitor ratings and popularity.

Fort Worth’s Japanese Garden received a quiet score of 8.7, making it the seventh-quietest spot in the U.S., behind gardens in Phoenix, Portland and Seattle. In comparison, the most peaceful spots in Dallas are Old City Park, with a quiet score of 4.3 and White Rock Lake Park with a 3.9.

Tucked inside the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, the 7.5 acre-Japanese Garden was completed in 1973 and is home to Japanese maples, magnolia trees, cherry trees, bamboo, a waterfall, a moon viewing deck and 1,200 Koi fish.

Last month, Southern Living Magazine named the city’s 120-acre botanic garden, which opened in 1934, one of the South’s most beautiful gardens.

Related: Baby gorilla Jameela, born in Fort Worth, bonds with surrogate at Cleveland zoo

Sarah Bahari , Staff writer . Sarah Bahari is a trending news reporter. She previously worked as a writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she covered a bit of everything.

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Environmental concerns raised by rocket flights over San Diego County

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base soared over San Diego in March.

Regulators want more information about noise, ocean debris from events widely seen across Southern California

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Plans by SpaceX and other companies to boost the number of rocket launches sometimes seen streaking across San Diego County’s skies have prompted the California Coastal Commission to question the environmental effects.

Residents near Vandenberg Space Force Base, on the state’s Central Coast, say the launches shake their homes and rattle their nerves. People don’t know when to expect them because the lift-off time varies and can be delayed by weather conditions.

“I find it difficult to believe that there are no impacts on (wildlife) species due to SpaceX launches,” said Carpinteria resident Rebecca Stebbins in an April 5 letter to the Coastal Commission.

“I, along with thousands of other residents of the South Coast, am significantly impacted with each launch, including being woken up from a deep sleep on occasion, while my dogs are terrified, my house shakes, and the sonic booms are felt physically, with a deep shock.”

Conservationists say the noise disturbs native wildlife such as red legged frogs, the western snowy plover, seals and sea lions, and it interferes with commercial and recreational fishing. Nearby public beaches and fishing grounds are often closed during the launches.

“The launches are extremely loud and destructive,” said Mandy Sackett in San Diego, senior California policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation.

“Sound impacts are grossly underestimated,” Sackett said, and she urged the Coastal Commission to “pump the brakes” on the increase.

Another downside are the latex weather balloons released before every flight to check atmospheric conditions. The balloons carry batteries and electronics that reach the stratosphere and then burst from the pressure before falling back to earth or into the ocean, where the equipment sinks with little chance of being recovered.

As many as 30 balloons were released before each launch until recently, a Vandenberg official said. A launch now needs as few as 10, and the number is decreasing as technology improves.

Space companies pay mitigation fees of $10 for each pound of unrecoverable debris they create, and the money goes into a fund for the collection of lost fishing gear such as mono-filament line and nets. But commissioners, at their meeting Wednesday in Long Beach, said that amount may be insufficient.

“A battery is hazardous waste,” said Commissioner Kristina Kunkel. “It’s not comparable to fishing gear.”

Air quality may be the first concern of anyone who has seen the rocket’s long trail of vapor, yet the reported emissions are well below applicable state and federal standards. The fuel is rocket-grade kerosene combined with liquid oxygen. When it burns, it produces a negligible amount of soot and nitrogen oxide in the exhaust.

The U.S. Space Force and SpaceX, owned by electric-car magnate Elon Musk, have asked the Coastal Commission to approve an increase to as many as 36 launches a year at Vandenberg. The SpaceX launches averaged six annually over the past five years, although they have been increasing steadily, reaching a total of 19 in 2022 and 28 in 2023.

The company has been ramping up launches as it builds a network of nearly 42,000 Starlink satellites to provide worldwide direct-to-cell internet service. Each Falcon 9 rocket carries up to 22 satellites.

SpaceX also uses bases in Texas and Florida, and as of March had launched more than 5,500 satellites. The company has a roster of other launch customers, including NASA and the Pentagon.

The Coastal Commission reached no decision on the request Wednesday. Instead, the commissioners voted to postpone the matter so staffers can look further into the cumulative effects of the launches and return with more information in a month or longer.

Other private companies and federal agencies also launch rockets at Vandenberg. Last year, there were 37 launches in all, said Space Force Col. Bryan Titus, operations vice commander at the base.

“We’re asking for 36 right now (for SpaceX alone), and we do plan to ask for more later,” Titus said at Wednesday’s commission meeting. The base has the capacity to do as many as 110 launches a year, which could increase with plans to build an additional launch platform.

The launches are allowed based on the Coastal Commission’s previous determination that the environmental effects of the events are relatively insignificant. Also, there are questions about whether the state agency can regulate actions by the federal government that Titus said are vital to national security.

“All launches support the Defense Department and our allies,” Titus said.

About 25 percent of all SpaceX rockets include a Defense Department payload, he said. The United States also benefits from the company’s Starlink system of satellites.

“Starlink has been absolutely critical in the situation in Ukraine,” he said, referring to the U.S. support of the country in its war with Russia.

Landings of the rocket’s reusable first stage also will increase under the SpaceX plan, another concern for Central Coast residents.

While the launch of the rocket creates a thunderous roar, it does not create a sonic boom, Titus said. Only the return of the first stage, less than 10 minutes after liftoff, creates a sonic boom that can be heard from 80 miles away or farther, depending on atmospheric conditions.

The rocket stage can return to Vandenberg, or, if that’s too far, it can land on a floating platform at sea. SpaceX also is asking the Coastal Commission to allow an expansion of the ocean landing zone to cover an area beginning at least 31 miles from the coast and extending out as far as several hundred miles, anywhere between the latitudes of Los Angeles and the middle of Baja California.

At sea, landings occur on a barge-like drone ship that is towed to the general area. Once there, it can remotely adjust its position.

Some of the commissioners questioned the need for so many launches, especially when most of the profits go to private companies such as SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based aerospace company.

Some of the commissioners said they would prefer to see statistics for all the launches, including those by NASA, the Defense Department and private companies. They also noted that no one representing SpaceX was present at the meeting.

“I am concerned about the piecemealing of this,” said Commissioner Ann Notthoff. “We can’t really assess what this exponential growth is. We have to get a handle on that.”

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Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise Essay

Introduction, noise pollution in perspective, the distinction between noise and sound pollution, reference list.

As the world’s nations continue to scale the heights of development, they inevitably have to grapple with the negative side of the advancements realized therein. Among such consequences is the problem of environmental pollution. The battle against environmental pollution has brought together international bodies, governments at the national level, and organizations within countries. However, the trends indicate that the harder the battle is fought, the more serious the issues of concern become.

Environmental pollution is a multifaceted concept that is constituted by a plethora of independent aspects. One of these aspects, which continue to dominate debates across the entire world, is noise pollution. As cities expand to accommodate their ever-increasing activities, so does noise from all sorts of sources increase. This essay examines noise pollution and distinguishes it from sound pollution with a focus on urban traffic noise.

Existing literature is awash with different approaches to the definition of noise and consequently noise pollution. However, of importance is that the approach notwithstanding, noise bears one characteristic that qualifies any sound to be considered as noise. It tends to impair communication between two parties (Schafer, 1994). In other words, noise is any sound that irritates ears and by doing so, hinders ears from capturing projected sound adequately. In light of this insight, noise pollution is thus the existence of sounds that combine to inflict pain on ears continuously, thus causing discomfort to the listener. This assertion means that in a polluted acoustic environment, any two parties wishing to communicate will do so under some level of strain and the chances of the message being distorted are very high.

Noise pollution has been found to have several adverse effects on the health and well-being of man. Its effects range from damaging ears to have a causal effect on some complex health conditions that have been witnessed in some people. To begin with, noise pollution causes reduced working efficiency as noted by Kryter (1970).

When two groups of people are placed in noisy and non-noisy environments and assigned the same tasks, those in a quieter environment will tend to be slightly more productive than those in a noisy environment. This aspect could be attributed to the fact that noise pollution causes distraction and as such, slows down a worker in a noisy environment. The distraction in most cases is undesirable, but the victims cannot help it since they have to divide their attention to a given extent between the noise and the task. The disparity could be up to 12% improved efficiency for those working in a generally quiet environment (Kryter, 1970).

In addition to affecting the efficiency of a worker, noise can also affect the reaction time of an individual to visual stimuli (Kryter, 1970). If noise is persistently availed and the individual is presented with visual stimuli to react to, the noise may cause the individual to lengthen the reaction time, the individual may also react too fast to such stimuli or get used to the noise and not be affected at all (Kryter, 1970).

The three instances of noise affecting the reaction of the individual may not be desirable during certain circumstances. An individual’s ability to react to stimuli should not be interfered with in any way. The danger posed by altering an individual’s reaction time can be appreciated better in circumstances where the stimulus that necessitates the reaction can cause fatal injury to the victim. The victim may end up suffering serious injuries or dying prematurely.

Besides these two, noise also has an effect on the learning of an individual so that it distracts the individual in a way that s/he is not able to learn, as would be the case in a quiet environment. In a study by Kryter (1970), the individuals used a lot of muscular effort, and their breathing was accelerated too in the presence of noise, as compared to quiet environments.

This study clearly shows that noise may have a non-desirable effect on the speed of learning because even if an individual learns, there is a time difference in the individual learning from a quiet environment and the one in a noisy one. Fast learners are considered intelligent, and most education systems tend to favor such individuals. The effect of noise can thus lead to the classification of some individuals as being less intelligent when in actual sense they are victims of a noise-polluted environment.

Kryter (1970) further noted that noise affected the intelligence of an individual so that when an intelligence test score was taken in a noisy environment, it had a detrimental effect on the results. This observation can be attributed to the fact that noise interferes with the ability to concentrate, as would be the case in a quiet surrounding. Studies carried out to find out if the noise had a bearing on the mental and muscular effort exerted while undertaking a task also indicated that there was a negative effect (Kryter, 1970).

There was an increase in speed by up to 4.3% for typists working in relatively quiet environments and what is more surprising is that they consumed less oxygen by up to 19% less than their counterparts working in a noisy environment (Kryter, 1970). Although some indications suggested otherwise, it was notably clear that noise indeed had an effect on the muscular and mental effort exerted to accomplish a task.

These examples are clear testimonies to the effect that noise can have on human beings. Although there are instances of noise showing a positive effect, the magnitude of such effects is negligible, if compared to the cases in its negative effects (OECD, 1991). However, an important point to note is that whether the effects are negative, which is mostly the case, or positive, studies demonstrate beyond any doubt that noise pollution will, in one way or another, affect an individual’s perception of his or her surroundings and that is not desirable.

The preceding parts of the essay extensively dealt with noise pollution, but at this point, there is a need to develop a clear distinction between these two concepts. Sound refers to stimulation caused in ears by the vibration of any surrounding medium. Sound pollution is thus any departure of this sensation from its desirable quality. Based on the manner in which the two terms are used in everyday activities, it is almost impossible to alienate one from the other, yet the two terms mean two distinct things. Therefore, noise is a type of sound whose effect is always undesirable to a listener. In reference to traffic, not all forms of sound produced by traffic can be classified as noise. Only those that in one way or another cause discomfort to individuals’ ears qualify as noise.

This essay is focused on traffic noise in urban settings; therefore, it is important to understand the various forms of sounds that emanate from traffic and what qualifies them as noise pollution from the onset. It should be clear at this point that it is not possible to mention noise without touching on sound because noise is a certain type of sound, but one can easily examine sound without necessarily touching on noise. This distinction should help in the succeeding part of the deliberations of this essay.

In an urban setting, traffic is inevitable for motorists are part of the economy of any setting. Some cities have attempted to tackle the problem of excessive numbers of motor vehicles by touting bicycles as alternatives with considerable success. However, this move is not possible everywhere; therefore, traffic noise will always be a problem to be solved. Among the many forms of sound produced by vehicles, the following can be classified as noise; the honking of horns, the squealing of tires, sirens, raving engines, and banging doors among others. These examples do not exhaust the list, but outline some of the most common sounds that emanate from traffic.

Several reasons underscore why sounds can be classified as noise and thus eventually cause noise pollution. The unexpectedness of a particular form of sound may qualify it as noise due to the annoying effect that this scenario causes the listener (Kryter, 1970). When a driver suddenly steps on the brake pedal to avert an impending accident, the squealing of tires may cause an annoying effect to a listener who may not be watching the scene, and s/he is thus caught off-guard by the sound. The case may be slightly different for a person who watches the scene from beginning to end because for him or she, the squealing of the tires is registered in mind as being necessary under such circumstances. The distinction between sound and noise is thus evident in the perception of the same sound by the two individuals.

The intensity and loudness of a sound qualify it as noise even in circumstances where it is clearly known that it is necessary. A police or ambulance siren may be anticipated at any time, but still, it irritates people due to its intensity and loudness. The loudness is necessary for traffic to clear the way, especially in the case of an ambulance, but this element makes it more undesirable to the listener. The more intense a sound is, the more irritating it is (Rosen et al., 1962). When the sound of an ambulance siren is compounded by the rave of its engine and honking horns, the sounds form a typical scenario of traffic noise in an urban setting, and this is what forms noise pollution from traffic.

In addition to these two, another quality of sound that makes it qualify as noise and thus pollute the acoustic environment is its inappropriateness (Truax, 2001). In an environment where quietness and calm are desired, when there is penetration by sound from a given source, it is immediately considered noise, and thus it serves to pollute that environment. This scenario happens when the peace and quietness that initially prevailed are destabilized by the sudden presence of undesired sound.

A good example of this scenario is in school or library buildings that are proximate to roads. Although the designers incorporate sound absorbing elements to muffle any noise that may interfere with students or readers, sound may still penetrate as noise to cause disturbance and discomfort based on its loudness and intensity. The idea of the inappropriateness of the sound in these settings stems from the fact that these places require total quietness so that when a tire squeal gets to the ear of a learner who is trying to internalize a concept; it tends to draw the learner’s attention to an unnecessary occurrence.

This discussion clearly indicates that noise pollution occurs when a non-desired sound penetrates a given acoustic space but fails to give instances in which it can be said that sound pollution has occurred. At this point, sound pollution shall thus be briefly put into perspective. In reference to traffic noise, it may not be possible to construct the idea of sound pollution clearly, for the way traffic sounds come out is not anyone’s concern. Sound pollution can clearly be examined under conditions where the quality of a sound being produced is of concern to the listener; for instance, in music. In music, a singer, a producer, and a listener are all concerned with the quality of the sound produced. This assertion means that anything that affects the sound so that it does not come out as it should is polluting the sound.

This can best be understood from a mechanical perspective where the sound is viewed as the wave. Therefore, when there is interference with the wavelength or amplitude of a sound wave in any way, it changes from how it is expected to sound to a different form of sound, which may not be desirable by a listener. This scenario underscores how sound pollution takes place. It can be seen that sound and noise pollution are two distinct concepts, but what should be noted even at this point is that the polluted sound becomes noise.

Urban traffic noise may not necessarily cause any form of sound pollution because no one pays attention to the difference between how certain sounds should come out and how they do come out. The quality of sound seems to matter only in music and other instances such as auditions where the quality of an individual’s vocals determines his or her suitability for a particular task. The case is different in normal life situations where the quality of sound does not matter because it seems not to add any value to the acoustic environment. For instance, a tire squeal may not concern anyone at all apart from the fact that it may announce an emergency of some sort.

When a vehicle suddenly stops, it implies that either an accident has occurred or it nearly occurred. The quality of the sound produced by the tire squeal may not concern anyone at all. Traffic noise thus exclusively amounts to noise pollution in any environment including habitually noisy environments. However, ways of reducing the risk posed by noise pollution to human health should be sought because whether in a habitually noisy environment or a quiet one, noise pollution still affects human health. Polluted sound translates to noise, which makes it equally dangerous to human health, and thus it should be avoided.

Kryter, K. (1970). The effects of noise on man. New York, NY: Academic Press. Web.

OECD. (1991). Fighting noise in the nineties . Paris, France: OECD Publications. Web.

Rosen, S., Bergman, M., Plester, D., El-Mofty, A., & Satti, M. (1962). Presbycusis study in a relatively noise free population in the Sudan. The Annals of Otology, Rhinology, and Laryngology, 71, 727-43. Web.

Schafer, R. M. (1994). The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VA: Destiny Books. Web.

Truax, B. (2001). Acoustic Communication. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, May 4). Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise. https://ivypanda.com/essays/noise-pollution-project/

"Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise." IvyPanda , 4 May 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/noise-pollution-project/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise'. 4 May.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise." May 4, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/noise-pollution-project/.

1. IvyPanda . "Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise." May 4, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/noise-pollution-project/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Noise Pollution: Urban Traffic Noise." May 4, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/noise-pollution-project/.

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Acoustic Emission Testing for Industrial Plant Maintenance
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Acoustic and Electric Recordings
Reducing Traffic Noise Pollution in Cairo
Ecological Dimensions of Globalization
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Guest Essay

The Nobel Winner Who Liked to Collaborate With His Adversaries

A colorful illustration of two identical-looking youths in a bucolic setting. One is in red overalls and is before a red lawnmower, and the other is in blue overalls and is before a blue lawnmower. They are glaring at each other, and each has a foot pressed against the other’s. The two lawnmowers have carved a circle in the grass.

By Cass R. Sunstein

Mr. Sunstein is a law professor at Harvard and an author of “Noise,” with Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony.

Our all-American belief that money really does buy happiness is roughly correct for about 85 percent of us. We know this thanks to the latest and perhaps final work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner who insisted on the value of working with those with whom we disagree.

Professor Kahneman, who died last week at the age of 90, is best known for his pathbreaking explorations of human judgment and decision making and of how people deviate from perfect rationality. He should also be remembered for a living and working philosophy that has never been more relevant: his enthusiasm for collaborating with his intellectual adversaries. This enthusiasm was deeply personal. He experienced real joy working with others to discover the truth, even if he learned that he was wrong (something that often delighted him).

Back to that finding, published last year , that for a strong majority of us, more is better when it comes to money. In 2010, Professor Kahneman and the Princeton economist Angus Deaton (also a Nobel Prize winner) published a highly influential essay that found that, on average, higher-income groups show higher levels of happiness — but only to a point. Beyond a threshold at or below $90,000, Professor Kahneman and Professor Deaton found, there is no further progress in average happiness as income increases.

Eleven years later, Matthew Killingsworth, a senior fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found exactly the opposite : People with higher income reported higher levels of average happiness. Period. The more money people have, the happier they are likely to be.

What gives? You could imagine some furious exchange in which Professor Kahneman and Professor Deaton made sharp objections to Dr. Killingsworth’s paper, to which Dr. Killingsworth answered equally sharply, leaving readers confused and exhausted.

Professor Kahneman saw such a dynamic as “angry science,” which he described as a “nasty world of critiques, replies and rejoinders” and “as a contest, where the aim is to embarrass.” As Professor Kahneman put it, those who live in that nasty world offer “a summary caricature of the target position, refute the weakest argument in that caricature and declare the total destruction of the adversary’s position.” In his account, angry science is “a demeaning experience.” That dynamic might sound familiar, particularly in our politics.

Instead, Professor Kahneman favored an alternative that he termed “adversarial collaboration.” When people who disagree work together to test a hypothesis, they are involved in a common endeavor. They are trying not to win but to figure out what’s true. They might even become friends.

In that spirit, Professor Kahneman, well into his 80s, asked Dr. Killingsworth to collaborate, with the help of a friendly arbiter, Prof. Barbara Mellers, an influential and widely admired psychologist. Their task was to look closely at Dr. Killingsworth’s data to see whether he had analyzed it properly and to understand what, if anything, had been missed by Professor Kahneman and Professor Deaton.

Their central conclusion was simple. Dr. Killingsworth missed a threshold effect in his data that affected only one group: the least happy 15 percent. For these largely unhappy people, average happiness does grow with rising income, up to a level of around $100,000, but it stops growing after that. For a majority of us, by contrast, average happiness keeps growing with increases in income.

Both sides were partly right and partly wrong. Their adversarial collaboration showed that the real story is more interesting and more complicated than anyone saw individually.

Professor Kahneman engaged in a number of adversarial collaborations, with varying degrees of success. His first (and funniest) try was with his wife, the distinguished psychologist Anne Treisman. Their disagreement never did get resolved. (Dr. Treisman died in 2018.) Both of them were able to explain away the results of their experiments — a tribute to what he called “the stubborn persistence of challenged beliefs.” Still, adversarial collaborations sometimes produce both agreement and truth, and he said that “a common feature of all my experiences has been that the adversaries ended up on friendlier terms than they started.”

Professor Kahneman meant both to encourage better science and to strengthen the better angels of our nature. In academic life, adversarial collaborations hold great value . We could easily imagine a situation in which adversaries routinely collaborated to see if they could resolve disputes about the health effects of air pollutants, the consequences of increases in the minimum wage, the harms of climate change or the deterrent effects of the death penalty.

And the idea can be understood more broadly. In fact, the U.S. Constitution should be seen as an effort to create the conditions for adversarial collaboration. Before the founding, it was often thought that republics could work only if people were relatively homogeneous — if they were broadly in agreement with one another. Objecting to the proposed Constitution, the pseudonymous antifederalist Brutus emphasized this point: “In a republic, the manners, sentiments and interests of the people should be similar. If this be not the case, there will be a constant clashing of opinions, and the representatives of one part will be continually striving against those of the other.”

Those who favored the Constitution thought that Brutus had it exactly backward. In their view, the constant clashing of opinions was something not to fear but to welcome, at least if people collaborate — if they act as if they are engaged in a common endeavor. Sounding a lot like Professor Kahneman, Alexander Hamilton put it this way : “The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties” in the legislative department of the government “often promote deliberation and circumspection and serve to check excesses in the majority.”

Angry science is paralleled by angry democracy, a “nasty world of critiques, replies and rejoinders,” whose “aim is to embarrass,” Professor Kahneman said. That’s especially true, of course, in the midst of political campaigns, when the whole point is to win.

Still, the idea of adversarial collaboration has never been more important. Within organizations of all kinds — including corporations, nonprofits, think tanks and government agencies — sustained efforts should be made to lower the volume by isolating the points of disagreement and specifying tests to establish what’s right. Asking how a disagreement might actually be resolved tends to turn enemies, focused on winning and losing, into teammates, focused on truth.

As usual, Professor Kahneman was right. We could use a lot more of that.

Cass R. Sunstein is a law professor at Harvard and an author of “Noise,” with Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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The Spinoff

Society Yesterday at 5.15am

The sunday essay: on code switching and finding my voice.

For some people, I sound too Malaysian. For others, not Malaysian enough.

The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.

I am in the heart of Kuala Lumpur at a bustling food hall, ordering a plate of char kuey teow for $3. I have just arrived, and the first thing I want to do is eat the local hawker food I have desperately missed.

“Uncle, can I order one char kuey teow, please, extra char boleh?”

He looks at me and smiles. “You nak seafood today or not?”

“No lah uncle, just chicken today, thank you.”

He adds eggs and flat noodles into his seasoned wok and begins cooking. I take in my surroundings. Conversations flow around me in Tamil, Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, and Manglish. I breathe in the thick, humid air and enjoy the fact that I am sitting in a multi-lingual space. It is good to be back.

Just days ago, if I had ordered the same dish in a Malaysian restaurant in Tāmaki Makaurau, I would have spoken in what some would call “proper English” using my Kiwi-Malaysian accent. I would not have used any Malay words or cultural slang in my speech, and my sentence structure would have been different. This alteration to my speech is not new. I have been learning and practising using two accents and speaking colloquial English – Manglish – since I was a six-year-old Kiwi kid experiencing culture shock when I left Christchurch and came to live in Malaysia.

When I first moved to Malaysia, unlike my peers, there was no “lah”, “ma”, “dei”, “haiyah” or “haiyo” colouring my vocabulary yet. I felt like a “coconut” – brown on the outside and culturally western on the inside – and I was conscious of not fitting in. I needn’t have worried, though: through attending public school, I quickly learned Malaysia’s national language, Malay, which turned me from monolingual to bilingual. Becoming fluent in a second language also altered my accent, and being surrounded by a melting pot of cultures further changed how I spoke my first language, English.

A couple of years before I returned to Aotearoa to further my studies, my mother, noticing my increasing use of Manglish, worriedly told me, “You must speak in clear British English, not English with ‘ma’, ‘la’, ‘haiyo’ and ‘haiya’. How are you going to be accepted in New Zealand when you talk this way?” I heard her, but I didn’t feel the need to heed her advice. I did not see anything wrong with the way I spoke. In fact, I thought it was cool. I loved that my English was coloured with words from other languages, and I enjoyed conversing in English and Malay, or both if I felt like it.

O nly when I returned to Aotearoa did I understand her point and become cognisant of my accent and how I spoke. I stood out, but in a different way than when I was a child trying to fit into Malaysia. Now, I was required to assimilate and adapt to New Zealand’s societal expectations, and those very definitely did not include speaking in the way I was used to in Malaysia. I’d hear elderly migrants apologising at shops for their poor English, self-conscious of their accents. I quietly observed medical receptionists being rude to people coming in with heavy accents and conversing in limited English. “I just can’t understand what this person is saying,” one receptionist would exclaim in frustration to their colleague while the patient would stand there, embarrassed, just wanting to get in and see a doctor. When it was my turn, I’d go up and speak in the clearest, most Kiwi way possible, hoping they would smile at me. A big part of me wanted their approval.

I quickly became aware that the combination of my long name, skin colour, and using a full-blown Malaysian accent would not do me any favours, let alone speaking Manglish. And so I began code switching: changing my accent and pronunciation when conversing to suit the Kiwi way of talking, and then switching back to a Malaysian way of speaking when I’d go back to visit my parents and family in Malaysia. I even started introducing myself as Abby to avoid explaining how to pronounce my name to new acquaintances multiple times. I had two identities and two voices that would, over time, automatically switch depending on where I was.

I wasn’t learning the New Zealand accent from scratch. I slowly eased into a familiar yet distant way of conversing and hoped that sounding more Kiwi would help me fit in faster. Despite my deliberate accent, I was still asked more times than I was comfortable with if my parents spoke English and if I grew up in an English-speaking home. “Your English is so good,” some would remark, surprised that I could string a sentence together. These questions about my mother tongue, along with the “where are you from?” question, were not often asked in a spirit of genuine curiosity.

People around me had their own opinions, too, which fed into my continual code switching. An acquaintance, questioning my accent, asked in an accusatory tone, “Why don’t you sound Malaysian?” I laughed it off but felt defensive, upset and confused.

I had these mixed feelings because I have two places I call home, and before I knew the words for what I was experiencing, I had to adapt and assimilate to these very different environments. The people-pleaser side of me also kicked in: much like how I wanted to please the receptionists at the doctor’s, I wanted to give this person an answer that satisfied her. I knew she wanted me to tell her I was putting on an accent, to somehow get me to admit that I was either not Malaysian enough or not Kiwi enough for her.

In reality, although my first language was English and my first accent was Kiwi, my Malaysian accent and fluency in Malay speak to both my schooling in Malaysia and the culture my family has lived in for over a century. Why did my acquaintance want to reduce me to “not sounding Malaysian”, rather than truly seeing the complexity of the influences that inform my identity?

Her way of thinking was echoed by social media videos of influencers “humorously” imitating the way Hollywood celebrities of South Asian descent pronounce their names. I was unsurprised to read the comments section filled with criticism for “sounding white while being brown”. If a person has grown up across different cultures, and both inform who they are, surely they can embrace this, regardless of the court of public opinion?

W hen I see exclusionary comments on news articles in Aotearoa talking about how “we” should only speak English, not te reo or any other language, I take a deep breath. I never learned to fluently speak my mother tongue, Tamil, and this makes me feel disconnected from my heritage and roots. Growing up, people would look at me and then at my parents in shock, saying, “She can’t speak Tamil?! But this is who she is!” I didn’t even know who I was, and hearing opinions like these created more self-doubt.

This is all the more reason for me to respect the languages and the accents that come with different cultures and wholly embrace the indigenous language of this country. Although Kiwi English is a part of my identity, speaking in this way is also about surviving and being accepted. I think about my parents and the people before them who had to do the same. Perhaps this is why my mother, who wanted the best for me, told me to speak in “clear British English”.

Today, while walking my dog, I had a tourist stop me. I wondered if it was because I was using a rock climbing harness as a hands-free walking tool for my energetic border collie, who was looking up at me whining loudly, wanting to be let off to run. Or maybe it was the white cast of the sunblock on my face, making me look like a floating, ghostly head on a dark brown body.

The tourist approached me and said, “You look local?” to which I nodded, yes, I am. He told me he was on holiday and looking for recommendations for cafes and walks around my area. We talked a bit more, and I said I found it odd that he was in my neighbourhood, considering all of the other interesting places he could be while visiting Tāmaki Makaurau for a few hours. I asked him where he was travelling to next. “Home,” he replied. He paused, then continued. “I have a Canadian accent, but I live in Australia. Long story.”

I rattled off a list of cafes and walks. He looked at me and said, “You sound Kiwi, but there are words in your speech where you don’t sound Kiwi. What is that accent?” He was asking in a genuine, kind, “I’ve been there” sort of way. “It’s a hybrid between Kiwi and Malaysian,” I replied. He nodded, smiled, then chatted to me for a while about his trip in Aotearoa. He thanked me, then headed off to his car.

I looked down at my dog. “Let’s go home lah,” I said.

Microplastic 'hotspots' identified in Long Island Sound

Forensic and environmental experts have teamed up to develop a new scientific method to pinpoint microplastic pollution 'hotspots' in open waters.

A study by Staffordshire University, The Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean and Central Wyoming College trialled the technique in New York's Long Island Sound.

Professor Claire Gwinnett from Staffordshire University explained: "Long Island Sound was a location of interest because it has lots of factors that can cause pollution.

Funded, in part, by the National Geographic Society, the study saw samples collected from the deck of the 60′ oceanographic sailing research vessel, American Promise . The team took 1 litre 'grab samples' of surface water every 3 miles from the East River along the middle of Long Island Sound to The Race, where it meets Rhode Island Sound.

Grab sampling allows analysis of specific locations, with the researchers applying a statistical approach to identify hotspots where microplastics were most in evidence.

"People often use the term 'hotspot' but it is not scientifically defined. Previous studies have used largely subjective methods, without the use of any rules or thresholds that differentiate hotspots from non-hotspots," Professor Gwinnett commented.

"Our study proposed a simple yet objective method for determining hotspots using standard deviation values. This is the first time that this has been done."

Overlaying heat maps of various types of shipping and vessel traffic with the microparticle heat map from this study shows potential similarities. In particular, between areas of high recreational and passenger vessel traffic and higher microplastic concentration.

Professor Gwinnett said: "We need to consider factors that might influence these results, such as population, geography and human use. The identified hotspots, however, were found in both densely populated areas and adjacent to some of the least densely populated land areas surrounding Long Island Sound.

"The first step in combatting this type of pollution is by characterizing microparticle samples so that we can begin to understand where they might have come from."

97% of samples contained human-made particulates. Microparticles were classified as 76.14% fibres and 23.86% fragments. 47.76% of the fibres were synthetic and 52.24% were non-synthetic.

Forensic science approaches developed by Staffordshire University were used to analyse the microparticles -- including type, colour, shape, material, presence of delusterant and width -- which identified 30 unique categories of potential sources of pollution.

Rachael Miller, Expedition lead and Rozalia Project Founder, explained: "Unlike larger fragments of plastic, which may exhibit clear features that easily identify its original source, such as bottle cap ridges or a partial logo, this is generally very difficult for microparticles unless an analysis approach which fully characterizes the particle is used.

"Identifying a specific type of item from which a microparticle came from e.g. pair of jeans, carpet, tyre or personal hygiene product increases the likelihood of discovering the mechanism for transport to the environment. That, in turn, increases opportunities to prevent a subset of microplastic pollution."

The authors are now calling for reference databases of potential pollutants of waterways. PhD researcher Amy Osbourne specialises in forensic fibre analysis at Staffordshire University after progressing from the undergraduate degree in Forensic Investigation.

She said: "We cannot confidently identify the sources of pollution without being able to cross reference samples against large, easily searched known provenance databases. Such databases are already used in forensic science when identifying sources of evidence found at crime scenes.

"For example, we might begin with a database of all the different types of fishing nets or tarpaulins that we know are commonly used in areas like Long Island Sound."

Professor Gwinnett added: "While more research is needed to fully understand microplastics concentrations and implications of this pollution, the very presence is enough to engage in solution development and solution-deployment."

Environmental Issues
Air Pollution
Air Quality
Environmental Science
Environmental Awareness
Environmental impact assessment
Air pollution
Gulf of Mexico
Remediation
Hotspot (geology)
Environmental engineering

Story Source:

Materials provided by Staffordshire University . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

Rachael Z. Miller, Brooke Winslow, Kirsten Kapp, Amy Osborne, Claire Gwinnett. Microplastic and anthropogenic microfiber pollution in the surface waters of the East River and Long Island Sound, USA . Regional Studies in Marine Science , 2024; 70: 103360 DOI: 10.1016/j.rsma.2023.103360

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