Light Pollution – Air Pollution
Light pollution is intrinsically linked to other forms of pollution – the most obvious being, air pollution. Light is produced using electricity generated from the burning of fuels, which produces carbon emissions in the process. The overproduction of light hence results in more emissions produced than what would have been produced if only adequate lighting was used. The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) estimates that at least 30% of outdoor lighting in the United States are wasted – amounting to the release of 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. That is equivalent to the amount of CO2 produced by 4.6 million cars in a year (US EPA, 2016) – and this figure is for the US alone. What if we were to take into account the amount of emissions produced from wasteful energy all over the world?
Besides, excessive light is found to interfere with ‘natural filters’ found in our atmosphere – nitrate radicals in our atmosphere removes pollutants from the night sky, which would otherwise have formed smog or ozone gas (CIRES, 2011). However, excessive light generates sufficient energy to break down these nitrate compounds, causing less air pollutants to be filtered off.
Light Pollution – Land Pollution
Given the projected increase in Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) by 7.4% year-on-year (Ho, 2018), it is projected that there would be at least 350 million LED-operated street lamps across the world. Besides the Jevons Paradox which states that LED might lower cost of production and usage of lighting and lead to greater overuse of lighting instead of light-savings, there is also a potential issue of increased landfilling of traditional streetlamps as well as the shortening of the end-of-life of traditional lamps (Dzombak et al., 2020). In a bid to transit towards energy-efficient lighting, traditional streetlamps would typically be removed even before they reach their end-of-life, where they are landfilled instead of recycled for future uses. This creates greater land pollution in the forms of land waste.
References
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). (2011). Bright City Lights Affect Air Pollution. [online] Available at: https://cires.colorado.edu/news/bright-city-lights-affect-air-pollution
Dzombak, R., Kasikaralar, E. and Dillon, H.E. (2020). Exploring Cost and Environmental Implications of Optimal Technology Management Strategies in the Street Lighting Industry. Resources, Conservation & Recycling: X, [online] 6, p.100022. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590289X19300192
FSG Electric & Lighting (2020). How Street Lighting Upgrades Can Have a Positive Impact on Our Climate. [online] FSG Electric & Lighting. Available at: https://fsg.com/how-street-lighting-improves-climate/
Ho. (2018). LEDinside: Top 10 LED Demand and Supply Market Trends in 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.ledinside.com/intelligence/2017/9/ledinside_top_ten_led_demand_and_supply_market_trend_in_2018#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20report,price%20stayed%20stable%20and%20that
International Dark-Sky Association. (2016). Light Pollution Wastes Energy and Money – International Dark-Sky Association. [online] Available at: https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/energy-waste/#:~:text=IDA%20estimates%20that%20least%2030,of%20carbon%20dioxide%20per%20year!
US EPA. (2016). Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle | US EPA. [online] Available at: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle#:~:text=typical%20passenger%20vehicle%3F-,A%20typical%20passenger%20vehicle%20emits%20about%204.6%20metric%20tons%20of,8%2C887%20grams%20of%20CO2.