France: noise, a pollution that costs more than 150 billion
Traffic jams on the Paris ring road.
Getty Images / Martial Colomb
Text by: RFI Follow
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In France, the social cost of noise represents 155.7 billion euros, according to a study by the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) and the National Noise Council, published on July 22.
A figure in clear increase.
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In France, the social cost of noise represents 155.7 billion euros, or 100 billion more than in 2016, according to the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe). This figure actually represents the health costs and non-market costs generated by
noise pollution.
It includes, for example, the medical costs for people who develop pathologies linked to too frequent exposure to noise pollution, but also calculates the loss of well-being linked to its nuisances.
An increase partly linked to methodological changes, but which nevertheless remains significant.
“
There is inevitably also a gap which is linked to an increase in the number of people exposed apart from these methodological questions.
So there is still a deterioration of the situation that must be kept in mind, even if it is not more than 100 billion.
An estimated 17 million the number of people who feel a strong discomfort due to noise with more or less strong impact on health
"
,
says Johan Ransquin, director of ADEME.
Noise, the second environmental health hazard after air pollution
First source of
nuisance
: transport noise and especially road traffic.
“
It is transport which represents two thirds of the cost, around 100 billion, of which more than half for road traffic, it is logical.
All of this really gives orders of magnitude that are extremely interesting, in order to be able to quantify this problem and realize that it is still not nothing,
”he
adds.
Noise is, according to the WHO,
the second environmental factor
causing the most health damage in Europe, just behind air pollution, responsible for example for 40,000 premature deaths per year in France.
The study does not stop at this observation and proposes various recommendations to reduce noise pollution, in particular acoustic installations in cities such as acoustic pavement coverings or noise barriers.
These coatings are also tested in certain areas of Paris.
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Health and medicine
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France