"Secondhand Noise": This Era's Counterpart to Secondhand Smoke

The American Journal of Public Health has published an editorial in its January, 2017 edition. Its author, a medical doctor and MBA named Daniel J. Fink, argues that prevailing concepts of "safe" levels of noise exposure are badly outdated

Two aspects of the argument are particularly interesting. One is that hearing problems are rising more quickly than the simple demographics of an aging population would indicate. For instance:

Urbanization exposes people to higher average noise levels. News reports document intermittent exposure to loud outdoor noise from yard equipment, construction, vehicles, and aircraft and to loud indoor noise, with sound levels of 90 to 100 decibels or greater in restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, concerts, sports events, and other places. Use of personal music players at high volume with earbuds or headphones is common, especially among the young.

The number of Americans with hearing loss increased from 13.2 million (6.3% of the US population) in 1971 to 20.3 million (8%) in 19915 to 48 million (15.3%) in 2011. Numbers are approximate because of methods used to study epidemiology of auditory disorders. Part of the increase is because of the growth of older age groups with a very high prevalence of hearing loss. An increase in hearing loss also occurred in those younger than 20 years. ... Higher noise levels may contribute to increased prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

 

The other is the editorial's argument that "secondhand noise" is this era's counterpart to the secondhand smoke, with public health consequences that need to be recognized. As Dr. Fink puts it:  

In the 1950s, half of all American men smoked. When research showed that smoking caused cancer, heart disease, and other health problems, doctors and the public health community spoke out, leading to the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, decreased smoking rates, and, eventually, a largely smoke-free environment, with dramatic reductions in morbidity and mortality. People still have the right to smoke, just not where others are exposed to secondhand smoke.

A similar approach is needed for noise.... People should still be allowed to make noise, just as they are still allowed to smoke, but not where others are exposed involuntarily to their noise. Where noise may be part of the experience, for example, clubs, concerts, and sports events, warning signs should be posted and hearing protection offered. If the United States could become largely smoke-free, it can also become quieter. As with smoke-free air, a quieter environment will benefit all.

Dr. Fink has a post at The Quiet Coalition site amplifying the public-health argument. And a post there last month explicitly made the noise/smoke connection: "Noise Is the New Secondhand Smoke"

Palm Beach, FL, Takes an Anti-Leaf Blower Step

This week a committee of the Palm Beach Town Council took a step toward banning leaf-blower use within the city. "The residents don’t want them,” one committee member said. “My opinion is that the majority of the residents in town are ready for a ban.”

The story is in the Palm Beach Daily News, by Aleesa Kopf, and you can read the whole thing here. Samples:

 

Leaf blowers could be on their way out of Palm Beach.

The town’s Ordinances, Rules and Standards Committee recommended Thursday to ban landscape companies from using the noisy machines in Palm Beach.

Members Bobbie Lindsay and Danielle Moore made their decision based on a groundswell of support over the past several months. Advocates for the ban cite noise, health and safety concerns.

“The residents don’t want them,” Lindsay said. “My opinion is that the majority of the residents in town are ready for a ban.”...

Rita Sullivan called the machines dangerous for workers who can’t hear what’s going on around them and for residents who have debris blown in their faces. She said the noise and air pollution blowers cause, and the friction they create between neighbors, are bad for quality of life on the island....

“The town has been dealing with this nuisance for 25 years with very little progress,” he said. “Leaf blowers cannot be regulated. We have tried for years to regulate these things. It’s pragmatically impossible. These things have to be banned. Period.”

 

"Grif" Johnson Receives D.C. Community Cornerstone Award

Early this month Washington D.C. Councilmember-at-large Anita Bonds released a list of the 2016 "Community Cornerstone" honorees. These are people whose civic engagement has made a difference in the life of the community. As Councilmember Bonds said in her announcement of this year's honorees:

Each is a cornerstone of our community. They make an extraordinary impact on the quality of life and general well-being of the residents of the District of Columbia through their efforts in: Arts & Entertainment, Business Development, Elected Representation and Politics, Health and Social Services,Social Justice, and Community Leadership.

One of those selected was John Griffith "Grif" Johnson, who has been a major figure in the QCDC organization as well. Anita Bonds described his work this way:

John Griffith Johnson, Community Services Advocate

Upon achieving 90% retirement from practicing law in 2010, "Grif" became active in a variety of community-oriented projects. From tutoring 3rd and 4th grade students, teaching the English language to adult learners, and helping senior high school students develop life skills, Grif believes that education can change lives. He also served as Chair of a non-profit and remains an active member of the board. He has also volunteered on other projects, including working on Saturday mornings to help refurbish various D.C. Public School facilities. He continues to deliver food weekly to persons who are confined to their homes and who are coping with serious illnesses.

More recently, Grif joined a group of D.C. residents who are committed to educating the public about the environmental and public-health harms caused by the use of combustion-engine leaf blowers.

Congratulations! 

Quiet Communities announces a "Quiet Coalition"

Quiet Communities, a public-health oriented non-profit based in Boston, has announced "The Quiet Coalition," a movement to direct attention to the chronic and acute health effects of increasing levels of ambient noise.

From their announcement:

The group is focused on getting policy makers in the U.S. as well as citizens to realize that noise is a burgeoning public health problem in the U.S. The founding chair is Daniel Fink MD, an internist who also serves as interim chair of Quiet Communities’ Health Advisory Council.

Unsafe levels of noise pervade our communities – from landscape maintenance, construction, restaurant music, sporting events, sirens, alarms, household appliances, toys and video games, personal listening devices, and air, road, and rail traffic. The sounds are often many times higher than those considered safe.

“The scientific evidence is incontrovertible: noise causes hearing loss and other health problems. We have a responsibility to speak up just as experts did when the dangers of smoking became known,” says Dr. Fink.

"The Devil's Hair Dryer," from City Lab

In November 2016, at the City Lab site, David Dudley wrote about the noise effects of two-stroke engines, mainly through the increasing use of two-stroke gas-powered leafblowers. Sample:

Other people who tend to complain about leaf blowers live next to (or attend) schools and universities, which doesn’t bode well for the quality of the learning going on in there. “Anecdotally, there are many teachers who have written to me discussing how campus lawn and garden maintenance activities disrupt their classroom instruction,” Walker tells me via email. “Some have had to stop class because students can’t hear their lecture.”

Noise pollution is particularly harmful for children, as decades of public health studies have demonstrated, and most efforts to silence the din of gas-powered blowers have focused on their auditory toll. Campaigns to forbid leaf blowers have been successfully waged from Long Island to South Pasadena*, many led by a national nonprofit, Quiet Communities, which has a mission to “promote clean, sustainable, and quiet outdoor maintenance practices.” One progressive solution proffered by commercial landscapers with eco-minded clients: high-tech battery-powered blowers like this bad boy, which costs as much as a (crappy) used car and runs for an hour on its lithium battery, but makes a bit less noise and a lot less smog.

He also added this chart, from the latest Greater Boston Noise report, of incidence of complaints:

From the Washington Post: "We Know You Love Your Leafblower..."

Adrian Higgins, gardening columnist for the Washington Post, has a column on the tragedy-of-the-commons represented by modern lawn care practices, and the surprisingly potent effect of ambient noise. Sample:

There is a weird human phenomenon at work here: Sound is far less irritating to its creator than to its recipient. Erica Walker, a doctoral student at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health, seems to have hit on one reason for this: Recipients of nuisance noise have no power over it....

The aural irritants go far beyond the leaf blower: Airplanes, buses, trains, loud-talkers, barking dogs, blaring music — all form ingredients in the sour stew. But the leaf blower is a major culprit. The most powerful models can create a stream of air exceeding 200 mph and with noise levels as high as an ear-piercing 112 decibels....

One facet of this problem is that as residents have turned over care of their yards to landscapers, what was once a weekend phenomenon from a gadget-minded homeowner is now a weekday, day-long assault on neighborhoods. Another gripe: A tool thought of as an instrument of the fall has become a three-season mainstay for crews who equate a speck-free lawn, patio and flower bed with a job well done.

The two-stroke blowers are also highly polluting, said Ruth Caplan, a civic activist in Cleveland Park and a member of a group lobbying against them, Quiet Clean D.C.

“We are concerned not only about the impact on neighbors but also on workers and feel this hasn’t been given the attention that it needs,” she said.

In a recent paper written with Jamie Banks, of an organization named Quiet Communities in Lincoln, Mass., Walker measured the sound from a commercial-grade gasoline blower at various distances. Even from 800 feet away, the noise was above the 55-decibel threshold at which sound is considered harmful by the World Health Organization, she said. Another problem is that the machines emit a low-frequency sound that is not measured conventionally but which travels long distances and penetrates building walls.

D.C. City Council Hearing, on Two-Stroke Engines

On November 3 of 2016, Washington D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh, who chairs the Council's environment committee, held hearings about cleaner and more sustainable approaches to lawn-maintenance. Several members of QCDC offered brief testimony, which you can see below.

Greater Boston Noise Report

In October, 2016, researcher Erica Walker (below), a doctoral student at Harvard's Chan School of Public Health, released her 2016 Greater Boston Noise Report. It's worth reading for its public health, technological, and sociological aspects. The main link is here, with accompanying blog here.

Erica Walker, from the Noise and the City site.  (Photo by Julio Cesar Roman)

Beaufort S.C. Shifts Away from Two-Stroke Machinery

The Beaufort Gazette reports on a shift in several coastal communities in South Carolina away from two-stroke gas-powered lawn equipment, and toward quieter and cleaner battery-powered machinery. Sample:

One of the area’s largest landscaping contractors thinks it can make those interruptions a little less grating. The Greenery is introducing battery-powered equipment in places like Beaufort’s Henry. C. Chambers Waterfront Park, Sun City in Okatie and Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island.

The company has purchased battery-operated Stihl backpack blowers and hedge trimmers, though the number is still only a small fraction of the gas-powered inventory.

The new blowers maxed out at 78 decibels on an iPad decibel-meter application Friday in Waterfront Park. The gas blowers peaked at 93 decibels....

Noise exposure has been an issue for officials with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said Jerry Ashmore, The Greenery’s workforce and safety director. OSHA officials monitored Greenery employees in February, measuring sound levels each hour for eight hours and averaging their findings.

Federal regulators don’t want workers exposed to noise above 85 to 87 decibels for an extended time, Ashmore said, adding the Greenery was within those limits with gas blowers.

And here is a video from the site.

WAMU on the Composer and the Leaf Blower

WAMU, the Washington D.C. public radio station based at American University, has a very interesting report about the pianist and composer Haskell Small, who pioneered some of the earliest DC-area efforts to limit ambient noise. The radio broadcast, by Matthew Schwartz, is here. An Atlantic item about Small (and about this report) is here. 

Haskell Small at his piano. Photo by Matthew Schwartz / WAMU.

Slashdot on the Coming Change in Two-Stroke Engines

At the popular and influential tech site Slashdot, Hugh Pickens writes about the technological shift away from two-stroke engines, because of the emerging evidence of their public-health effects and menace.