After noise pollution, what next?

FOR a while, legal minds in the Philippines were in a bit of a quandary about noise pollution. Some argued that the 1999 Clean Air Act (Republic Act 8749) defines air pollutant as any matter that is detrimental to health such as dust, soot, cinders, fly ash, etc. Since noise is not matter but energy, it is not legally actionable. But it is good that the same Clean Air Act classifies noise as an emission, i.e., unwanted sound from a known source which is passed into the atmosphere; therefore, it is actionable.

Though interrupted by the coronavirus health crisis, light pollution could emerge in the “new normal” as a global environmental problem, considering the continuing “wonders” in light technology development that we read about and see on TV and portable screens nowadays.