Warm street lighting for Malta and Gozo

In the past few months, in many locations in Malta and Gozo, street lights have been changed from Sodium lights to LED white lights (5000k/4000K).

Sodium light emits warm bright light which, apart from being aesthetically pleasing to the eye because it complements the colour and texture of the Maltese limestone, it also effects us psychologically in a positive way particularly in contrast to the newly installed LED white lights.

As researchers from the Harvard Medical School have found, LED white /blue light has a negative effect on the body’s biological clock and can also contribute to a number of diseases as well as obesity (http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side).

Besides the above, bright white LED lighting creates a potential danger for traffic accidents and less safer environment for pedestrians. This is due to the narrow beam angle of these lights which only light up a restricted area leaving many parts of the street in pitch darkness. This effects our vision even more when one looks directly into the lights.

Such consequences can be avoided by either replacing them with LEDs (2700K), which emit a warmer light, are still energy efficient and produce less light pollution, or by adding warm light filters to the presently installed lamps.