Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …
In an unprecedented lawsuit filed against the government of Sri Lanka by five infants aged between two-and-a-half months and two years, the Supreme Court recently ordered the operators of a private power plant to close down its generators from 10 pm to six am. The petition filed by the infants' …
With a view to curbing air and noise pollution caused by diesel generator sets, the Delhi High Court recently sought expert opinion on the issue. It was pointed out that these sets were being widely used by shops in market places and industrial houses, reportedly without permission. The ministry of …
THE ear-splitting roar of a supersonic passenger jet during take-off could be muffled by surrounding the jet's exhaust with a 'virtual shroud' of air, according to Dimitri Papamoschou, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California at Irvine, in California, US. The shroud could be the …
Gas stoves are environmentally more sound than electric stoves, says a new study by the Danish Environment Protection Agency. They emit five times less carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), a greenhouse gas, and nearly 100 times less sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), a generator of acid rain. Power for electric …
A new'hush house'just completed by British engineers for the Portuguese Air Force will drastically cut the noise of jet engines on ground tests to no more than a loud hum. The facility, located at one of the main strike bases at Monte Real, 130 km north of Lisbon, has been …
TO COMBAT noise pollution, United Kingdom's (UK) Building Research Establishment (BRE) recently undertook some innovative research aimed at providing noise-insulated dwellings to people. The project includes persuading architects to design houses with considerable insulation against cacophony and finding out construction material that keeps out the maddening noise (Spectrum, No 246). …
DON'T turn a deaf ear if someone told you that ears not only receive sounds but also produce them. Now, a team of scientists led by Nicholas L Powers at the Hearing Research Laboratory in Stat.e University of New York, USA, has confirmed that the inner ear sometimes acts as …
The Netherlands government's recent go-ahead to Amsterdam's Schiphol international airport to build another runway that will double its passenger load and treble its cargo capacity is meeting with increasing resistance from the Dutch. Their main grouse is the inevitable increase in engine din; even though 10,000 houses will be sound …
In a rare victory for the Sri Lankan public, a private firm, Shakkain Engineering Ltd, (SEL) was served with a court injunction to end quarrying and crushing operations at Kirindiwela in north Colombo. Environment Foundation lawyers pelted SEL in the case on behalf of the people. Within 1 year the …
THUNDEROUS rumble of automobiles and trucks through Austria's Brenner Pass threatens to shatter more than just the tranquility of the Tirol region. The Transit Treaty Austria had negotiated with Brussels as a condition for its European Community (ec) membership, seems to be in jeopardy. The treaty intended to restrict North-South …
CITY authorities and researchers generally react with a practised, silent ennui to noise contour-mappings of urban areas and the consequent short-lived furore about "impermissibly high noise levels". But for once now, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF), deafened by the amplifying din, has initiated an environmental impact assessment noise …
December 1985: The Acoustical Society of India prepares a report on the need to legislate industrial and urban community noise pollution. The Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986, includes noise as an environmental pollutant for the first time. February 1989: A committee constituted by the Central Pollution Control Board sets standards for …
NOISE influences human behaviour both physiologically and psychologically. At 0 decibels, the bottomline of hearing, the weakest sound can be heard in an extremely quiet environment. A soft whisper registers 20 dB and sleep is disturbed when ambient noise levels exceed 35 dB. Conversation is generally conducted at about 70 …
AIR, WATER, garbage, radon toxicity, sludge, noise. More than a part of our daily lives, these are perennial if hackneyed jargon. Few people would love to begin their mornings with them, fewer would care to read about them and even fewer disgruntled citizens would care to buy a book and …
THOSE who wax lyrical about the superior sound quality of compact discs over records or vice versa, do so merely for the sake of argument, conclude German music psychologists who found that only one out of 40 persons could distinguish between sounds from the two (New Scientist Vol 139, No …
Workers in noisy coal washeries have been shown to suffer considerable hearing loss. According to one study, 20 per cent of washery workers had mildly handicapped hearing -- hearing loss becomes a handicap when the ability to hear conversational speech is impaired -- while the others developed slight hearing impairment. …
MANUFACTURERS of hydraulic hammers are being forced to make them quieter, largely following environmental legislation which originated in Germany a decade ago and is rapidly spreading.'Most of them have come up with a solution which involves wrapping the harnmer in a mattress-like material. Krupp's Compact System, introduced three years ago, …
