For us Pakistanis, noise
pollution does not even exists! We simply let the noises around us destroy our
life and are not even aware of it! It’s because many of us are already so used
to all the sounds we hear in everyday life. Whether it’s the loud music in our
parties or the forever turned on television, people talking on their phone or
the intense noise of the traffic, or it could even be pets barking in the middle
of the night. All of these have become a part of our urban culture and they
rarely disturb us. But when the sound of this television keeps you from sleeping
all night or the sound from the traffic starts giving you a headache, it stops
becoming just ‘noise’ and starts turning into ‘noise pollution’.
Did you know that loud, abrupt sounds can harm the eardrum, while sustained
sounds at lower volume can damage the middle ear; both types of sounds can cause
psychological damage as well!
The health hazards of noise pollution on our body includesdisturbance in sleep
patterns and Noise-induced hearing loss. Whereas the psychological effects by
this noise pollution includes problems such as annoyance, aggressive behavior
and constant stress, anger and frustration, fatigue and hypertension.
But worst of all is the cause of it. Because as the noise pollution is generated
by things that we have made a part of our lifestyle that is why we cannot
recognize them. So, I’m going to distinguish some major causes of noise
pollution around us.
First of which is the constant honking of vehicles. This continuous honking of
vehicles especially in Karachi has become a routine for us so we don’t really
notice how much of a damage it conflicts on us.Not only this, but people who
live near airports or railway stations become victim of it as well.
Second are the household gadgets like food mixer, grinder, and vacuum cleaner
etc. that we daily use in our house. And of course generators that are a must in
our load shedding season inflict huge damage on us as well as the people around
our house. Which is amplified in confined areas like apartments or other
congested buildings where even a small noise is amplified drastically, resulting
to be very disturbing and injurious to health.
The biggest of them all is that the over usage of loudspeaker has become more
and more common these days. It has become an integral part of any social events
like marriages, parties, where the function is considered lifeless and
incomplete without a loudspeaker. Even in the market places where sells men sell
their products on loudspeaker to grab the attention of buyers. And at the
shopping malls loudspeakers are present as well. The most damaging is when at
marriage halls there are seats and tables placed right beside the massive
loudspeaker and the misery of the one being subjected to that loud sound is at
its peak.
These are just a handful of things which I pointed out, many more can be seen
even a little bit of observation. So, the best solution for this is to stay as
away from all these sources of noise pollution as possible.