NOISE POLLUTION IN TEXTILE, PRINTING AND PUBLISHING INDUSTRIES IN SAUDI ARABIA

MADBULI H. NOWEIR and A. T. M. JAMIL

Department of Industrial Engineering, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

(Received 13 March 2001; accepted 26 April 2002)

Abstract. A study of 20 factories belonging to textile, printing, publishing and paper products industries in Jeddah was conducted. Data on Leq, Maximum and Minimum SPL at different octave bands, as well as dBA, were collected. It has been found that textile, publishing and paper products industries are the most noisy industries. The paper is concluded with suitable recommendation for noise control and worker protection. Keywords: noise, printing, publishing, Saudi Arabia, textile

1. Introduction The causal relationship between work place noise and hearing loss has been observed for centuries (Franks, 1988). Lately, there have been many trials for assessing the magnitude of the problem of noise exposure in manufacturing industries. For example, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA), in 1981, estimated that more than 6 mL workers (active and retired) had had noise exposure levels greater than 85 dBA in U.S.A (OSHA, 1981) alone. However, in 1988, Frank (1988), using data of two OSHA-conducted U.S. industry-wide noise surveys (Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc., 1976; Booz, Allen and Hamilton Inc., 1983), estimated that some 4.7 mL were exposed in 1985 to average daily noise levels of 85 dBA or greater. Meanwhile, a NIOSH National Occupational Hazard Survey (NIOSH-NOHS) (1974, 1977, 1978) revealed that the top seven industries with the greatest percentage of workers exposed to 85 dBA or greater were lumber and wood, textiles, petroleum, utilities, metals, printing, and paper products industries. Similar ndings were reported by the two OSHA-contracted noise surveys (Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc., 1976; Booz, Allen and Hamilton Inc., 1983). In U.K., noise pollution was reported in 1985 as the biggest hazard in factories, since 700 000 workers were being still exposed to noise levels exceeding the governments recommended limit of 85 dBA (Pearce, 1985). It has been concluded that the problem of industrial noise had been aggravated by the use of high speed, high production machines in textile mills and other industries. In Spain, noise has been identied among the top occupational risk factors in printing and textile inNIOSH: National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 83: 103111, 2003. 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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dustries (Escriba-Aguir et al., 1993). Similar studies were reported from Russia (Chkannikov, 1993) and Ukraine (Menshov and Kureva, 1995) in textile industry. In developing countries also, there has been a great concern about the magnitude of industrial noise exposure, particularly in textile industry. In Egypt, (Noweir et al., 1968, 1979, 1985a, b; Noweir, 1984) a population of 500 000 textile workers was estimated in 1985 to be at risk of noise exposure (Noweir et al., 1985a) and many were exposed to noise levels up to 98 dBA. Auditoy (Noweir et al., 1995a), non-auditoy, nervous and cardiovascular effects (Noweir et al., 1985b) were reported among a study sample (n = 2652 vs. controls = 756). Also, bio-chemical changes (Noweir et al., 1979), reduced productivity, increased absenteeism and accidents (Noweir, 1984) etc. are other harmful manifestations of high noise exposure levels. Other similar studies in textile industries came from India (Pal and Rajput, 1991), China (noise levels up to 105 dBA) (Youjia al., 1987), Thailand (noise levels up to 101.3 2.7 dBA) (Chavalitsakulchai et al., 1989), Singapore (Tay, 1996), and Tanzania (Yhdegol, 1991). In Saudi Arabia, a survey in the late eighties of 78 factories producing food, chemicals, plastic, paper and other products (Al-Idrisi et al., 1990) found that 86.6% of the surveyed factories, at least in part, exceeded the permissible level of 85 dBA as recommended (ACGIH, 2000) by ACGIH . The authors recommended more detailed investigations in carefully selected industries. The present study was, therefore, conducted as a part of a plan to study, in details, noise pollution in selected high risk Saudi Industries. The scope of this present study includes textile, carpet, printing, publishing and paper product industries in Jeddah. Future studies are planned to cover lumber and wood, metal, and petroleum industries. The specic objectives of the study may be listed as: To map noise levels in selected industrial premises belonging to the above mentioned industries, and check compliance with the standards for industrial noise exposure. To provide recommendations for noise reduction and health protection of employees.

2. Methodology 2.1. S ELECTION OF FACTORIES A list of all factories in the following 5 categories of industries in Jeddah was obtained. (a) Textile industry, (b) carpets Industry, (c) general printing, (d) publishing industry, and (e) paper products industry.
ACGIH: American Conference of Govermental Industrial Hygienists.

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A stratied random sample of 20 factories, representing about 40% of the above industries, was selected. These included 3 textile, 2 carpet weaving, 7 printing, 3 publishing and 5 paper products factories. 2.2. N OISE MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS In individual factories, noise measurements were taken at strategic locations depending on the type, number and layout of machineries. The noise measurements included Leq dBA, Maximum and Minimum SPLs at the individual octave bands. Other relevant data such as the operation, type and number of machinery, construction materials for roofs, oors, walls and ceilings etc. were also recorded. Noise was measured at each location using the B & K Sound Level Meter (SLM) type 2236. The noise was measured at workers head level. An omni-directional microphone type 4188 was used with the SLM to include noises from all possible sources. The calibration of the instrument was checked before and after each set of measurements as recommended by the SLM manufacturer (B & K, 1978). The measurements were taken over a duration of 10 min at each location. The data were statistically analysed using Excel. For each factory, frequency tables for Leq, Max and Min SPL levels were construced. This was followed by computing the mean dBA of Leq, Max and Min SPLs, and also at different octave bands, for individual factories. The same analysis were done for each type of the industries by pooling the data of related factories.

3. Results and Discussion The dBA Means of Leq, Max (SPL) and Min (SPL) of the surveyed factories are given in Table I and graphically shown in Figure 1. The most used and possibly, the most meaningful parameter, the Leq has varying degree of variance, ranging from 1.5 dBA2 (Hygienic Paper Products Co.) to 5.9 dBA2 (Nasr Printing Factory). Factories with smaller variance of Leq could be treated with general noise control and reduction techniques. However, factories with high variation may have hot spots which would need individual noise control at the sources in addition to any general measures. Figure 2 shows the mean Leq (dBA) for the pooled data of the factories belonging to each of the industries under study. These data when compared with noise measurements in similar industries in some developing countries, as presented in Table II, indicate that the presently reported measurements are relatively low. This might be attributed to the better designed machineries and factory installations in Saudi industries. Also, it is interesting to note that noise levels over 85 dBA occur at frequencies mostly below 1 KHz across all industries (Figure 2). This indicates that noise reduction techniques when applied should take special care of frequencies below

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TABLE I Mean of the Leq and its standard deviation, means of maximum SPL and minimum SPL in the studied factories Industry Factory name Leq mean (SD) (dBA) 83.2 (4.4) 85.0 (3.7) 85.4 (2.8) 86.6 (3.1) 92.0 (1.5) 76.5 (3.3) 77.5 (3.5) 77.8 (5.9) 81.0 (3.6) 82.0 (4.0) 82.4 (3.6) 84.4 (4.1) 84.7 (2.9) 85.0 (4.4) 86.1 (3.6) 88.6 (4.6) 88.6 (1.5) 88.7 (3.3) 89.1 (2.4) 93.3 (2.9) Max. SPL mean (dBA) 92.8 93.1 90.1 93.7 95.5 83.3 87.3 90.6 87.5 92.0 89.0 90.0 88.5 91.4 91.8 95.0 95.2 93.5 95.7 100.1 Min. SPL mean (dBA) 74.0 81.2 81.4 83.1 88.6 72.9 71.0 70.4 75.4 73.3 77.2 80.1 80.8 80.6 82.4 83.4 85.6 84.8 85.1 89.3

Textile and Carpet

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Al-Suriya Carpet Factory Al-Dahlawi Yarn Factory Al-Bahlas National Carpet Company Saudi Spinning and Textile 1 Saudi Spinning and Textile 2 Al-Mubarak Printing Company Sahar Printing Estate Nasr Packing and Printing Company Al-Fateh Printing Company Al-Shark Printing Company Al-Madina Printing 1 Dar Okaz Publishing Estate Sarawat Printing Estate Al-Banawi Packing National Paper Products Company United Carton Products Company Hygienic Paper Products Company Saudi Carton Factory Al-Madina Printing and Publishing-2 Okaz Publishing Estate

Printing, Publishing and Paper Products

1 KHz. Meanwhile, the reduction in noise at these frequency ranges will considerably reduce noise interference with workers speech, since much of the human speech is between 300 and 700 Hz and most vowels are below 1 KHz (Kroemer and Grandjean, 1997).

4. Recommendations Based on the analysis, the following recommendations may be considered to improve the overall situation.

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Figure 1. Mean noise levels at different factories.

Hot spots (ie., sources that produce high noise levels) should be identied in individual factories, specically, in publishing, paper products and textile industries. As a rst line of defense, noise control/reduction measures such as replacing or modifying noisy machines, better installation and maintenance of machines and where necessary, quarantining very noisy sources etc., should be adopted. Many examples of noise control methods are described in the literature (B & K, 1982; Bies and Hansen, 1985), and many reports of noise control in textile industry (Dzwonnik, 1977; Mills, 1969; Graffagnini, 1970; El-Dakhakhni et al., 1975; Wilhelm et al., 1991) are also available. For the publishing and paper products industries, the situation seems critical. Noise reduction techniques such as redesigning walls and ceilings, using noise absorbing materials etc. should be adopted in addition to noise control measures suggested above. In textile and printing industries, which are among the noisiest, it is not possible to isolate the machineries since the workers have to work close to the machines. Hence, in these industries, workers should have personal protection measures and should be rotated to reduce their exposure level. A general hearing conservation program to protect workers should be introduced in all these industries and more specically in publishing, textile and

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Figure 2. Mean of Leq, max. SPL and min. SPL at different octave bands.

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TABLE II Comparison of noise levels (Leq in dBA) of the studied textile industries with recently reported similar studies in some other countries Country (References) Textile Carpet comprehensive weaving 83.285.4 90105 96.9 92.7 80.493.8 Textile weaving Spinning Yarn processing

Saudi Arabia (present study) China (Youjia et al., 1987) Egypt (Noweir et al., 1985; Noweir, 1984) Poland (Dzwonnik, 1977) Tanzania >90 (Yhdegol, 1991) Thailand (Chavalitsakulchai et al., 1989) Ukrain (Menshov and Kurev, 1995)

86.692.0 85.0

90110

101.3 86.097.7

89.8

paper products industries. Workers should have periodic audiometric tests to check the effectiveness of the noise controls and hearing conservation program. A general policy to supply ear protectors to all workers should be adopted (or even made compulsory) by all factories, since it is also very inexpensive. The results of this study point to the need of further studies at the remaining factories belonging to these industries and the other industries as well.

References
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