Noise Pollution

Noise is usually defined as unwanted sound, an airplane flying by, construction workers working on a building, but when is there too much noise? When there is too much noise it is considered noise pollution. Noise pollution is excessive noise created by nature or by machines that disturbs our everyday lives. Noise pollution can be extremely dangerous and can cause hearing damage and even complete loss of hearing.  Noise pollution can even damage animals in the environment by disrupting mating calls and other uses they have for sound.

Noise pollution has been around for a very long time and has given many people hearing damage and loss. Noise pollution can affect both humans and animals alike, having similar or different consequences. In humans’, noise pollution can affect both physiological and psychological health, which can result in annoyance and aggression, hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, and other harmful effects. All of these things that affect humans can be very dangerous and can also be dangerous to the people around you. Noise pollution can also make life harder with hearing loss and damage, and even when you’re older the effects will stay with you. Noise pollution can be devastating to people’s lives, making them disabled, or unable to work, but animals also face problems with noise pollution since it can interrupt mating calls making it harder for them to find mates. IT can also affect animals by changing the balance between predator-prey detection and avoidance. These effects on animals can seriously affect their lives; sometimes even more than ours.

             Noise pollution can be a huge problem in some areas, affecting animals and people. In some areas with high noise pollution some daytime birds sing during the night to have clearer messages because of the noise pollution. To humans it can also be a problem that there are high levels of noise pollution. Noise pollution can have very bad effects on people and can also cause annoyance and aggression, hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, and other harmful effects. In big cities noise pollution can affect lots of people. Imagine sitting in your car in the middle of traffic with extremely loud noises of horns honking, people yelling. Wouldn’t this make you stressed? The negative effects of noise pollution can be worse than people may think. Probably the most common effect of noise pollution is hearing loss and damage. Many people have lost their hearing to noise pollution which means they probably can’t work; this would make their lives much harder.

            Many things have been done to stop noise pollution on highways and other areas. On some highways they do things such as adding sound barriers, limiting speed, limiting heavy vehicles, changing surface texture, and tire design. This has significantly reduced sound on some roads and even something as small as changing the tire of your car can make the streets so much quieter. Speed limits are not specially used for sound reduction but they can be used not only to prevent accidents but also to limit sound. Sound barriers obviously can’t be used on downtown streets and suburbia streets, but on large highways it can be helpful to limit sound. A good example of a more modern sound barrier is the Sound Tunnel in Melbourne, Australia. During the 70’s and 80’s there were many attempts at making quieter jet engines. Although not much progress has been made, some reduction to airplane sound has been made.

            Science has many limitations in solving the issue of noise pollution. Probably the biggest problem is that sound cannot be totally removed (At least not yet). Noise pollution is bad because of excessive noise so the solution would be getting rid of some of the sound but not all of it. This can be an issue because if you are trying to remove some sound from a lot of sound there are tons of factors causing the sound so you can’t just quiet down the cars without quieting something else. The limitations of getting rid of noise pollution are very large, but there are some advantages in getting rid of it. Since the biggest problems of noise pollution are man-made, we know how to quiet them down but actually making the changes is what holds us back. It is hard to make large changes to our everyday lives just to make the world a little quieter. It would be impossible to stop people from driving cars in the name of making the world quiet. The limitations of preventing noise pollution far outweigh the advantages, making noise pollution something very hard to get rid of.

            Noise pollution has been annoying people for many, many years but still we seem unable to prevent it. There have been laws to prevent noise pollution but to fully exterminate it would be like setting ice on fire. The first law was produced in 1975 for Portland, Oregon, with funding from the EPA. In Portland fines for violating noise codes can reach as high as $5000! The many efforts to get rid of noise pollution have made small improvements but have ultimately not been extremely effective. Since sound is something we absolutely need in our lives we can’t get rid of noise pollution, but still, we can keep making small improvements.

Bibliography

Naik, Abhijit. "Noise Pollution Facts." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/noise-pollution-facts.html>.

"Noise." World Health Organization. World Health Organization. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/health-topics/environmental-health/noise>.

Stop Boom Car Noise, Motorcycle Noise, Car Alarm Noise, Barking Dog Noise, Neighbor Noise. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://www.noisefree.org/>.

"BBC NEWS | Health | Road Noise Link to Blood Pressure." BBC News - Home. 10 Sept. 2009. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8247217.stm>.