Noise pollution: causes and damages

Excessive noise doesn't just ruin your hearing and sleep. It also affects your thyroid and intestines. How can you protect yourself? First, use trees.

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noise pollution

For noise pollution it means the existence, within an environment, of a noisy source so intense as to cause, in the long run, disturbances or actual damages to the psychophysical system of people.

Consider, for example, a house overlooking a street where cars whizz by or located above a nightclub. And then there are the honking horns and roaring car engines, the sounds due to road works or heavy industries.

According l 'World Health Organization (WHO), noise pollution is one of the problems with the highest environmental impact after theair pollution.

NOISE POLLUTION

Noise pollution can have many causes, not only environmental, but also related to our lifestyles and in particular to some bad habits.
On the first point, it is enough to think that the noise of a busy road (not paralyzed by cars, as often happens in metropolises) produces a noise equal to 80-100 decibelsThe equivalent of a jackhammer that we're ready to start a condominium dispute over.
Among the damages of environmental noise pollution there is thepremature aging and, for the elderly, the increasing difficulty in deciphering words and sounds, distinguishing them correctly. The textbook case of noise pollution linked to lifestyle is that which arises from the insane way in which we listen to the music. 
It's easy to exceed 80-100 decibels (a plane taking off makes 120 decibels), and thus we slip into the gray area of ​​auditory stress. This results in a reduction in our hearing, even in our twenties. This, unfortunately, is becoming increasingly common. According to theWorld Health Organization, OMS, over a billion people are at risk of hearing loss due to the habit of listening to music at too high a volume.

WHAT IS NOISE POLLUTION?

Those forced to constantly endure the persistence of noise have to deal with a whole series of pathologies and physical damages that undermine their health.

La genesis of noise pollution, dangerous for animals too, has four particular sources:

  • il vehicle traffic, trains and planes
  • le industrial activities
  • i meteorological phenomena
  • la domestic life.

The first category includes, for example, excessive noises such as horn, tyres e enginesSometimes very annoying and unnecessary noises, such as the waste of a horn if the driver in front of us doesn't start moving as soon as the light turns green.

The pollution from rail traffic It is limited to areas close to train departure, arrival and transit stations, or where there is heavy train traffic.

Same for the air trafficThe victims of this type of pollution are people who live near areas where planes land and take off.

In the case of industrial activities, and even artisanal and commercial ones, it all depends on the type of production: some factories are very noisy, even if there are now ways to substantially reduce this form of pollution.

As regards the weather phenomena, just think of the deadly noise of thunder, while at home they create noise pollution phenomena devices such as televisions e radio, kept at high volumes, or particularly noisy household appliances, from vacuum cleaners to washing machines.

noise pollution

ALSO READ: Long live silence! Too much noise in the city is bad for the heart.

VICTIMS OF NOISE POLLUTION

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has calculated that long-term exposure to noise pollution is the cause in Europe of 12 thousand deaths per year and 48 thousand ischemic heart diseases.
Again: in the Old Continent 22 million people suffer from chronic noise-related annoyances and 6,5 million people have sleep disorders. linked to excessive noise.
Even children are hit hard in Europe by noise pollution: according to EEA calculations, 12,500 people a year see their cognitive abilities compromised by the excess noise they absorb.

NOISE SICKNESS

Noise pollution is really bad and according to a survey conducted by Eurisko, interviewing 8.800 people in 47 cities across 11 countries, “noise sickness” is increasingly widespread.

In Italy, for example, 29 percent of residents are exposed to high levels of noise, and among these 83 percent suffer from the intense noise of urban traffic.

WHEN DOES NOISE BECOMES NOISE POLLUTION?

The World Organization of Healthcare It has established the limits by which the difference between noise and noise pollution is measured.
In practice there are two thresholds (calculated based on the decibel, the unit of measurement for calculating noise):
  • 65 decibels during the day
  • 55 decibels at night

Then there is the legal aspect of noise and noise pollution, which is especially important for condominiums.

In this case Italian law sets permitted limits, within which the noise is considered “negligible” and therefore not illegal.  During the day, below 5 decibels between 6 a.m. and 22 p.m.; at night, below 3 decibels.

SYMPTOMS AND PATHOLOGIES OF NOISE POLLUTION

Among these we recognize the hearing and non-hearing damage, certainly relevant. The first ones are distinguished into acute damage, following an intense but brief noise, and chronic damage, relating instead to aprolonged exposure.

Hearing decreases in both cases causing a sensorineural hearing loss which is irreversible and can also cause dizziness, ringing in the ears, numbness.

Non-auditory damage is that which occurs in our body, regardless of the hearing system. Among these we list: gastrointestinal disorders, increased blood pressure, the nervous system alterations, of the thyroid, of the adrenal gland, of the immune system.

Noise is a source of enormous stress And this affects all our organs, undermining their functionality. Those who are constantly exposed to noise experience sleep and intellectual disturbances, which make it difficult to study and work.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM NOISE POLLUTION

Protecting yourself from noise pollution is not impossible. Even the European Parliament has put forward proposals to reduce, for example, the noise produced by cars by introducing lower noise emission limits in decibels as well as new information labels that warn about the type of noise produced by each car model on the market.

Even at home and in work environments, we can protect ourselves from noise pollution by equipping these places with sound absorbing panels, that is, panels made with special foams that absorb and therefore muffle noise. double glasses They are an alternative way to fulfill this function and are always recommended. In addition to home noise pollution, noise pollution can also be combated outside, in cities, with a few essential measures.

The sound-absorbing asphalt It is one of these, certainly expensive and requiring enormous maintenance, but capable of absorbing the sound waves produced by the compression of the air under the vehicle's body and between the wheel and the road surface.

TREES AND NOISE POLLUTION

Trees and plants planted along roadsides also prove to be excellent noise barriers. Furthermore, a plant barrier, no less than 15 meters high, also reduces air pollution by breaking down fine particles and thus purifying the air.

The problem will have to be assessed and resolved at European level, but Citizens and municipalities can also start doing their partThe former, by increasingly purchasing hybrid and electric cars, the latter, by providing sound-absorbing asphalt, plant barriers, and any other measures that may be useful for this purpose.

noise pollution

READ MORE: At full volume: Thirty-year-olds wearing hearing aids in 10 years

MUSIC AND NOISE POLLUTION

Young people are highly exposed to the risks of noise pollution resulting from listening to music at excessive volume. There are essentially two natural remedies for this danger, both very simple.
  • First of all, it is about following the 60-60 ruleThat is: listen to music at a volume no higher than 60 degrees centigrade and for no more than 60 minutes at a time.
  • Then there is a preventative remedy: using external headphonesThey are preferable to earphones, as the sound coming from headphones is softer and smoother and therefore less traumatic for the eardrum.

UNDERWATER NOISE POLLUTION

Underwater, thenoise pollution It can be so strong that it prevents communication between fish. This happens, for example, with species that are very widespread in the Mediterranean, such as corvina and castagnola. This is demonstrated by a study conducted as part of the project Deaf as a fish, by researchers from the Universities of Trieste and Vienna, in collaboration with the WWF Marine Reserve of Miramare.

“We discovered that The noise produced by a normal pleasure boat can deafen fish – explains biologist Marta Picciulin –. This phenomenon can compromise the fertilization of eggs, and therefore the very survival of species that attract mates by emitting sounds.”

Despite the popular saying, it's not true that fish are mute. In fact, over a hundred "chatty" fish species are known today, exchanging information about predators and prey, orienting one another, and sending love messages.

The sea is therefore not the silent world we think. On the contrary, In water, sound travels five times faster than in air., with a speed of approximately 1.500 meters per second.

And because there's also less dispersion, the sounds travel greater distances. Researchers in Trieste have long been listening to the sound of the sea, using hydrophones, microphones specifically designed to work underwater.

These "electronic ears" allow us to record sound waves and convert them into digital information. And in a world without borders, such as the sea, these instruments allow us to detect noise levels Different from area to area. For example, during the research, monitoring of Panzano Bay and the Cavanata Valley Marine Reserve confirmed that the former is ten times noisier than the latter.

THE NOISIEST CITIES IN ITALY

Which ones are they the noisiest cities in Italy?
  • The top spot in this not very honourable ranking goes to Milan, which is not surprising given that all four causes underlying thenoise pollutionIn some areas of Milan, such as the Navigli, you can get to everyday noises up to and above 75 decibels.
  • The cities that complete the podium of this ranking are surprising: Lecce (second place) and Verona (third place)They are smaller, more human-sized cities than metropolises, and therefore it should be easier to reduce noise and the risks of noise pollution. But unfortunately, this isn't the case.

ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE PROBLEMS IN EUROPE

La main cause of the noise is the road traffic. The problem is that it will become increasingly so in both urban and rural areas of the continent.

Immediately after the vehicular one, there is the railway, aeronautical and industrial one. Railway noise affected approximately 22 million people. While 4 million people were exposed to high levels of aircraft noise.

To counter this worrying phenomenon, theEuropean Environment Agency (AEA) believes it is necessary to put one's hand on old roads, one better management of traffic flows and the reduction of speed limits at 30 kilometers per hour. Measures that must be accompanied by a promotion of sustainable mobility e green, which is also less noisy. So let's go ahead with pedestrian areas, use of the bicycle and incentives for the electric vehicles.

ALL THE BENEFITS OF SILENCE:

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