Noise pollution is when there is a lot of noise (over 80 dB) in 1 area for a long period of time where someone is while not wearing anything covering their ears for a long period of time. This may sound like something from a from a sci-fi book but it still happens, in factories, target shooting, grenades/bombs, rockets, rock concerts, and wars. Noise pollution will be painful for you ears and it could cause hearing damage, and temporary or even permanent hearing loss.
Before, no one knew or cared about noise pollution, and as a result ex-soldiers who had been in a war over 10 years ago can be know to have bad hearing or if their unlucky, no hearing at all. Hearing damage is cause when a extremely loud sound (over 120 dB) is heard by a naked ear, which could damage or burst an eardrum, which is essential for hearing. Or it could damage hair cells, something that turns sound into electric signals that is then picked up and read by our brain and we hear the sound. But if these hair cells are damaged they will not grow back.
But now thanks to science and new technologies scientists are inventing new ways of stopping these problems. For 80 to 100 dB sounds you might as well just cover your ear or listen to some music with headphones. But for up to 110 to 130 and over you should have a Styrofoam earplug. This is very cheap but yet effective to keep workers ears from getting damaged and is found in almost every single factory where there might be loud sounds. Even if some aren’t used and are just there to get past health and safety.
For anything over that you should have headphones. And if it’s even higher than 190,(concussion grenade and some other types of bombs) scientists have invented a special ear plugs for the army that uses tiny filter that can deaden most sounds in a c war down to 22 dB. Scientists have also found out that there are sounds beyond a human’s ability to hear but yet some animals with sensitive hearing can hear it as a very annoying noise. Dogs are one of these species and trainers use special whistles which can emit this high pitched sound.
However, these inventions aren’t perfect. The cheap Styrofoam ear plug will be completely useless if there was a sound over 130 for a long period of time. Also the people who designed this small ear plug didn’t consider what workers who might do this for a living would be doing while wearing these ear plugs. Mainly, they would be moving around. But moving around is a big problem for these earplugs because the material they are made of is extremely squishy so it will mold to the basic shape of your ear, just slightly smaller, but once it’s in your ear it will not re-inflate so that while it’s in it is useful, but a small move will cause it to fall out onto the dirty ground. If this happens it will be dirty and its sticky surface will be dirty so you will get another. But sooner or later it will happen again, mostly sooner.
You could solve this problem by getting your company headphones, but if you have a lot of workers it won’t be cheap, and most will stick to the cheaper option. So there is something that often happens to humans, a perfect design ruined by the smallest thing.
Good introduction. I like how you explained how ears get damaged. You explained positives and negatives of using the styrofoam ear plugs. Are there any other solutions you researched about that you could discuss? Sound proof walls, quieter engines, etc...
ReplyDelete