Reducing Light Pollution - What Can You Do at Home?

It sometimes seems we can scarcely lift a finger without committing some kind of environmental atrocity, but the reality is that we really do need to consider the earth and it’s resources in our daily lives.
Light pollution (also know as luminous pollution of photo pollution) occurs when artificial light intrudes on an area, creating an amount of light that obstructs or disrupts the natural rhythms of the night. There are different types of light pollution – sky-glow, intrusive light and simple poor lighting design are all parts of light pollution.

Sky-Glow is the orange glow we see in the night sky

It’s a real problem for astronomers and has been blamed for impairing natural activates such as bird migration and insect behaviour. Some local Councils turn off street lights between particular hours of the night to minimise sky-glow and discourage crime.
Whilst you can’t control the street lamps outside your windows, you can do your bit to reduce sky-glow by always closing your curtains when your lights are on.

Intrusive Light
Unfortunately, security lights fall straight into this bracket! Intrusive light includes any light sited as to impair neighbouring properties. You can minimise the effect of such light by working together with neighbours when positioning garden spotlights and security lights. Many local authorities have mediation agents who could help resolve lighting-based quarrels between homeowners, business premises or third parties without the need for legal action.

Poor Lighting Design

A real catch-all for other lighting issues, poor lighting design covers things like light fittings which require very high energy consumption, lighting that provides more glare than helpful illumination, and lighting that impacts on the ecology of an area (e.g. interrupting the feeding patterns, hibernation, migration or life cycle of native plants and animals)
Light pollution has been blamed for numerous bird deaths, not only in cities, but in sub-urban Britain too. Birds have been known to fly into brightly lit windows when startled or attracted by the light.
We’re all familiar with low energy light fittings, and we've got plenty in our online store. But did you know you could also help by always siting angled lights below 70°? This reduces the glare of necessary lighting.
Perhaps the most effective and old-fashioned tip is to turn off all unnecessary lighting devices during the night. Does your shop front really need to be brightly lit through the night? Do all of your garden lights need to remain lit? Turning off surplus lighting is a superb way to minimise the effect on the surrounding environment, people and wildlife.

The bottom line is that we all need lighting – indoor and outdoor – to function in our civilisation. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem. If you’d like to know more about what you can do to help combat light pollution, get in touch with your local Environmental Health Department for more information on home lighting, external lighting and the law.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution

http://www.environmental-protection.org.uk/resource/light-pollution/