It occurred to me as I hear more and more complaints about the noise associated with Shanghai’s Expo 2010 construction and renovation boomlet that China has a Noise Law. In fact its usually listed among the pantheon of China’s major environmental laws. We’ve now added it to our “Laws & Regulations” offerings. As soon as we get a chance, we’ll run down the major provisions of the law so the next time you’re woken at 4:00am by the sound of jack hammering you can quote the relevant portions of the legislation to the law breaker. That should be effective.
China’s Noise Pollution Law
April 29th, 2009 · 7 Comments
Tags: noise law
7 responses so far ↓
1 H. Luta Bok // Apr 29, 2009 at 2:32 pm
WHAT?
2 Greener China // Apr 29, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Charlie.
This is going to be interesting .. and possibly entertaining.
I once knew someone in Beijing who threw a bag of tools out the 6th floor window when the construction team failed to comply with his request to stop drilling into the wall.
at 8 am ….on a Saturday morning.
Not sure if the law was behind him on that one, but enforcement proved effective!
Make sure and check out this post from NRDC
3 Dayton // Apr 30, 2009 at 9:54 am
Actually about 70% of the environmental complaints in China are noise related. The noise standards were updated (amended) late last year. China’s noise standards have always been strict. Bascially set at the same levels in developed countries.
Rumour has it the Noise Law will be amended some time this year. I hope MEP does a better job in drafting and adds more definitions.
As for Greener China’s friend in Beijing, the law most likely would not have been in his side (depending on noise level and area classification) as the daytime noise standards apply from 6am-10pm.
Compliance with China’s noise standards can be extremely costly.
4 cmcelwee // Apr 30, 2009 at 11:38 am
Thanks for comments Rich & Dayton! Of course its never a good idea to take the law into your own hands, but I still would have loved to see the look on the faces of the construction team members when guy chucked their tool bag out the window.
5 645 drill in my wall // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:18 am
645 theres a drill going through the out side wall of my apartment. during these ‘exiting”expo days they have re painted the outside of my tile building white, and broken my flower box in so doing so needless to say i haven’t got a lot of love for these stupid bastards, so i ell at the guy at my wall, i had been told previouly they coudlnt satrt till 8 am, but looking here it seems i heard. thee expo is stupid, the rust is already coming through the white paint and streaking down the walls. good work china! such a temporary patch and disturbance of so many lives for one stupid event, they did not even go this far for the olympics. dont get me wrong i love china but good gracious god almighty do they do some stupid annoying shit
6 Alvaro // Sep 23, 2009 at 5:42 pm
In my office, now the neighbours opened a flute shop and they play it all day. They play the same 2 songs every day to attract clients.
Can anyone tell me if I can take some legal action, in China (Beijing) ?
7 mike // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:30 pm
I’m not sure if its even a legal issue. The apartment building has its own policy about times, etc. And there’s ALWAYS some kind of construction going on.
Here’s the crazy thing. It’s not like in the West, where a team of construction workers will go home at night, and have dinner with their families, etc. In Shanghai, those guys are LIVING in that apartment up there. You can go yell at them, but they don’t really care. They’ve got nothing to do, and they know the faster they’re done the job, they faster they’re out of there. And they don’t give a sh*t if you can’t sleep. They don’t care about anything. They’re construction workers.
Call up the Apartment security and yell at them. Then call up the Head office and yell at them. You gotta press. Cuz if you don’t they’ll take advantage of you.
Another I’ve noticed is that my other neighbors, seemingly, don’t care. ?!? I’m always the one who , say, can’t sleep becuase of the racket, or can’t read, or can’t watch TV, because of the racket.
It’s true, living in a big city like NYC, London, Shanghai, turns you into a real asshole. And this is perfect example.
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