Noise as new type of pollution

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33095, 9 December 1972, Page 11

Noise as new type of pollution

(By

JOHN E. OWEN,

', professor of sociology, Arizona State University.)

Noise in the cities of the United States of America today is twice as loud as it was 15 years ago. As a new type of pollution, noise assaults the physical and nervous systems of at least 80 million Americans. Its intensity may double again in the next 15 years, unh ss steps are taken to curb the sound effects of technology.

A recent report by a group of scientists studying the growth of noise in New York concluded that if sound continues to rise at its present rate of one decibel a year, almost everybody in the city would be deaf—or dead—by the year 2000. The level of the weakest sound audible in an unusually quiet location by a person with very good hearing is one decibel. Conversational speech averages from 40 to 60 decibels, a very loud cocktail party conversation can reach 80 decibels, a power lawn-mower in a garden can be deafening at 120, and a jet plane taking off from an airport can do physical damage at 140 decibels. And since the decibel scale is a logarithmic scale, the 90 decibels of heavy traffic is not just twice as loud as the 45 level of normal voice conversation but many thousands of times louder. Public attitudes The entire situation, like so many United States problems, is complicated by ambivalent public attitudes. As both makers and receivers of noise, many Americans wish to be free to create noise themselves, while resenting the noise made by others. And with rising noise levels in the society, there is evidence that attitudes are changing. As 90 per cent of all noise is created by mechanisms, the values of society are placed on power. Significantly, in 1970, 500,000 persons were . wearing hearing aids, compared with only 300,000 in 1962. Earlier occupational diseases (abestos lung ailments, silicosis, lead poisoning) have been reduced through industrial legislation, but noise deafness is not so widely recognised as an affliction or seen as expensive in economic terms, and hence it persists. In 1968 the Federal Council of Science and Technology estimated that between six and 16 million employees in America were working under conditions that would endanger their hearing. Rock music For example, popular rock-and-roll music in teen-age dance - halls has been recorded at an ear-shattering 122 decibels, far above the risk criterion level in industry. For millions of people living near America’s major

airports, with their screaming jets, the high level and high frequency sound has been known to drive some to psychological and even physical illness. It is as though the United States city-dweller’s nervous system is receiving constant false alarms from cars, motorcycles, helicopters, jets, lorries, sirens, pneumatic drills, clanging dust-bins, plus wireless, television, and noisy exuberant children. Significantly, many chronic modem diseases (arthritis, diabetes, cancer, rheumatism, and cardio-vascular ailments) do not exist in the noise-free and stress-free environment of primitive societies. Apart from the human cost in frayed nerves and impaired health, noise also takes a vast unrealised toll in financial terms. Part of the $4OO million that Americans annually spend on headache remedies is due to noise. Some experts claim that the potential cost of noiseinduced hearing loss is greater than that of any other occupational disease, and that if only one-tenth of eligible workers were to file claims and be awarded $lOOO each, the total would reach $450 million. In actual fact, United States hearing-loss awards currently average $2OOO each. Tenants’ complaints In America’s cities, several research surveys show that noise is a main cause of tenant turnover in new fiats and apartments. Lack of sound-proofing is the leading complaint of tenants all over the country. A new hazard is from supersonic aircraft that break through the sound barrier. Prehistoric American-Indian buildings in Arizona and Colorado, cave dwellings that endured for centuries before the white man set foot in America, have been damaged in the last 10 years by sonic booms. Apart from the jolting shock to all persons who hear these aerial bangs, the cost of structural damage in North America caused by the booms is estimated about $5O million annually. Until very recently. United States legislation against noise has been extremely imprecise and ineffective. There has been nothing comparable to Britain’s Noise Abatement Act of 1960. Another complication is that noise is only one of many problems afflicting American

society, and several others are seen as far more pressing. Hence there has been no Federal noise legislation. An Office of Noise Pollution Control has been established by the Government under a 1970 law, and in October, President Nixon signed a bill to provide $24 million over three years to set and enforce acceptable noise levels for a wide range of products, from jet planes to dishwashers. Enlightened business corporations now recognise that community noise control is part of the cost of doing business, a policy that reaps dividends in public relations. Some of the largest corporations are now initiating internal noise control and hearing - conservation schemes. And advertising currently tends to stress quiet-running cars and appliances. Acoustical engineers have found that the actual cost of most silent equipment is not nearly as high as was previously believed. And in the last five years, citizens’ groups have formed for action and legislation on noise reduction. But America still lags behind Europe in concerted organised action on the Croblem. Her citizens will ave to make their voices heard before they are submerged in the rising tide of sound ail around them.