Pollution is the price we pay for an overpopulated,over-industralized planet.
When you come to think about it,there are only four ways you can deal with
rubbish:dump it,burn it,turn it into something you can use again,attempt to
produce less of it.We keep trying all four methods,but the sheer volume of
rubbish we produce worldwide threatens to overwhelm us.
Rubbish,however,is only part of the problem of polluting our planet.The need
to produce ever-increasing quantities of cheap food leads to a diffent of kind
of pollution.Industrialized farming methods produce cheap meat products:
beef,pork,and chicken.The use of pesticide and dertilizers produces cheap grain
and vegetables.The price we pay for cheap food may be already too high:Mad
Cow Disease(BSE)in cattle,salmonella in chicken and eggs,and listeria in dairy
products.And if you think you'll abandon meat and become a vegetarian,you
have the choice of very expensive organically-grown vegetables or a steady diet
of pesticides very time you think you're eating fresh salads and vegetables,or just
having an innocent glass of water!
However,there is an even more insidious kind of pollution that particularly affects
urban areas and invades our daily lives,and that is noise.Burglar alarms going off
at any time of the day or night serve only to annoy passer-by and actually assist
burglars to burgle.Car alarms constantly constantle scream at us in the street and
are a source of profound irritation.A recent survey of the effects of noise revealed
(surprisingly?)that dogs barking incessantly in the night rated the highest form of
noise pollution on a scale ranging from 1 to 7.The survey revealed a large number
of sources of noise that we really dislike.Lawn mower whining on a summer's day,
late-night parties in apartment blocks,noisy neighbours,vehicles of all kinds,especially
large container trucks thundering through quiet villages,planes and helicopters flying
overhead,large radios carried round in public places and played at maximum volume.
New technology has also made its own contribution to noise.A lot of people object
to mobile phones,especially when they are used in public places like restaurants or
on public transport.Loud conversations on mobile on mobile phones invaded a rather
surprising and possibly amusing old-fashioned source of noise.It turned out to be
snoring!Men were found to be the worst offenders.It was revealed that 20% of men
in their mid-thirties nore.This figure rises to a staggering 60% of men in their sixties,
Against these figures,it was found that on 5% of women snore regularly,while the rest
are constantly woken or kept awake by their trumpeting partners.Whatever the source
of noise,one thing is certain:silence,it seems,has become a golden memory.