Noise and air pollution

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When we speak about pollution, most people automatically think about air pollution, but there are many other kinds of pollution: each one can cause malaises and stress, and for each one we should try to find specific solutions. An example? Noise pollution, which could be solved, in part, with the sound-insulation of buildings. We do not hear a lot about noise pollution, but it is an affliction of our society; just think about any of our cities: the noise of motors and horns coming from the roads, the loud music of many clubs, the unpleasant noises coming from factories, construction sites and airports…all of these noise sources can cause damages not only to our ears, but also to our mental health: a prolonged exposure to loud noises can cause, indeed, stress and general malaise. Noise pollution can cause three types of problems: real damages to certain organs or systems, temporary disturbances to an organ or system, or annoyance. No wonder that there are precise regulations, especially as clubs and industrial plants is concerned, to impose limits that you cannot go beyond, and to forbid the building of these plants or clubs near populated areas. To reduce the effects of noise pollution, buildings can be equipped with acoustical panels, which can be assembled to build acoustic enclosures, barriers and partition walls. In the case of buildings where very noisy production processes take place, a precise acoustic design for industrial soundproofing is required.

Factories are among the main causes not only of noise, but also of air pollution. The dusts and smokes produced in many industrial plants during some production processes can cause serious damages to the environment and to people’s health. To try and limit the damages, factories have to adopt more and more efficient systems of industrial dust and smoke suction, as the steel plant IIVA from Taranto has recently done: at the beginning of year a new system of aspiration and dedusting of smokes has been inaugurated, a machine that filtrates these substances before they are put into the atmosphere. The positive effects, with a system like that, do not affect only the external environment, but also those who work in the factory, as the filters of the new machine reduce dust also in the workplace.