For people living in a never-sleeping city like Hong Kong, light pollution might be a rather disconcerting problem to the citizens. Residents often find it hard to go asleep with the perpetual lighting from the advertisement billboards opposite their rooms glaring into the heavy-curtained windows. However, in Hong Kong, the restriction of outdoor lighting was too submissive to shopping arcade owners and thus, encouraging excessive lighting even though few pedestrians walk past after midnight.
Doubtlessly, it was a waste of electricity. This extreme case following may catch you by surprise in the way billboards are being illuminated nowadays: A building, with 4 billboards hung onto the sides of the wall, is illuminated by 60 floodlights, culminating in a brightness of 9,000 lux- a unit for measuring brightness. Usually in daytime, an average of 10,000 lux is recorded. Comparing the two measurements, the lighting used for lighting the advertisements-which night dwellers may well walk past without noticing it-is surely a profligacy of energy.
Excessive lighting also cause health problems to those affected. In long-term, it will increase one’s stress and hypertension, in the meantime exacerbating cardiovascular disease. To teenagers, the lighting deprived the body of the necessary condition for the growth of body. In addition, it disrupts the production of melatonin and may possibly aggravate heart problems.
In term of environmental problems, the heat energy released from the lighting increases the interior temperature of the building and increases the need for turning on air-conditioners. Both processes bring pernicious harm to our environment and polluting our air.
Results from a survey conducted by an organization Green Sense found out that most citizens are discontent with the policies and enforcement appertaining to outdoor lighting. Activists, in order to make it lucid for the government to contemplate their proposal, put emphasis that they only suggested to turn off the unnecessary lighting in empty office and intrusive spotlights which may affect livelihoods of residents nearby. They wanted to show that the presence of light in the empty office or the advertisements does not affect the business and income, and should be able to convince the owners to change their pathological practice.
Last but not least, the group hope Hong Kongers to rethink their lifestyle and eventually live a greener life.