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Quiet Mark: the campaign for quieter technology starts

Dunya News

A foundation called Quiet Mark is helping to put silence back into products and into our lives.

Whether its noisy hair-dryers, blenders or garden strimmers, we are demanding products become quieter.Our hunger for peace and quiet has always been with us, whether it is monks undergoing vows of silences or libraries encouraging readers to be quiet, but an increasingly noisy planet means it is no surprise that some are looking at loftier areas to find solace.A company called Inbloon and Zero Infinity are offering flights to near-space where private travellers can board a quiet, high-altitude balloon and experience six hours of complete peace with the most magnificent views of our planet.Fortunately not everybody will have to fly through the stratosphere to find it if the ongoing work by a charity called Quiet Mark has anything to do with it.The charity awards Quiet Marks that encourage companies to produce less noisy products whether they are aeroplanes, strimmers, hair dryers, food mixers or even musical instruments. The charity believes that the reason products are noisy is because it is cheaper for manufacturers to make them that way.Actress Poppy Elliott is the founder of the company and the granddaughter of John Connell, the man who set up the UKs Noise Abatement Society. She launched Quiet Mark earlier this year and is passionate about creating a quieter life for us.“Life revolves around sound. Its a fundamental pillar of our existence. The sound of a dripping tap can be just as annoying as a foghorn because it’s not necessarily loudness that causes annoyance, but sound quality.“Our vision goes beyond noise reduction and into aural development at the cultural level, as we search for the most effective methods of reducing stress and embedding the quality of quiet into people’s lives,” she says.Such noble attitudes, however, need the support of companies to deliver quieter products. The car maker Lexus not only launched its Shhh TV campaign for the CT200bh compact hybrid with Kylie Minogue but has also seen a trend for quietness among car buyers.Quietness is at the heart of our engineering philosophy and it appears to be an appealing feature to todays car buyer, says a Lexus spokesperson, who backs up the claim by revealing how its engineers listen to its cars engines through a stethoscope to ensure that noise is at an optimum level.