Fireworks Pose Risks for Your Health and the Environment

Every year for the Fourth of July, America gears up to remember the bombs bursting in air with small bombs bursting in air.

The celebration is a widely practiced tradition in the United States and a fixture of summer. But besides the personal dangers of fireworks, which Los Angeles County and cities like Diamond Bar acknowledge with bans on recreational explosives, there are environmental harms from large, licensed fireworks shows as well.

Professional displays produce smoke and dust that contain various heavy metals, sulfur-coal compounds and other noxious chemicals. So, while copper compounds are used to produce blue colors, the dioxin they contain have been linked to cancer.

Cadmium, lithium, antimony, rubidium, strontium, lead and potassium nitrate are also commonly used to produce different effects, even though they can cause a host of respiratory and other health problems.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, a state agency based in Diamond Bar that monitors air quality throughout the Los Angeles basin, said that evidence shows no serious long-term effects of fireworks, but encouraged spectators choosing to view fireworks should stand downwind of smoke that could cause "some eye, ear or throat irritation." 

The impacts on the environment from large-scale shows is arguably more severe.

Firework ingredients often come from elements mined from the earth, and raw materials and energy are used to create the final firework product.

Transportation of these fireworks from distribution centers has a definite carbon cost and, for personal fireworks, consumers sometimes drive hundreds of miles to acquire fireworks and bypass local restrictions.

The chemicals and heavy metals in the "fallout" from fireworks also take their toll on the environment, sometimes contributing to water supply contamination and even acid rain.

Their use also deposits physical litter on the ground and into oceans, lakes, or rivers for miles around. The toxic elements rain down on neighborhoods from coast to coast, often in violation of federal Clean Air Act standards.

The Walt Disney Company, however, has taken large steps forward with cleaner fireworks technology, using environmentally benign compressed air instead of gunpowder to launch fireworks.

The efforts to clean up Disney fireworks displays came after some resident complaints and a study conducted by the SCAQMD around Disneyland in Anaheim.

Here are some suggestions for alternatives to the standard fireworks display this year:

• An environmentally friendly laser light show
• Try watching the stars or organize an outdoor movie or block party.  
• Indoor fireworks projectors are small devices that can be used indoors that produce convincing reproductions of firework displays as well as simulating the noise of real fireworks.
• Electronic fireworks display lamps produce colorful explosions of light all night long without the pollution or noise of real fireworks.
• Electronic pyrotechnics don't use explosives. Electronic blasts can form a canopy up to 25 feet in the air that rain down glitter, confetti, rose petals or even candy.
• PBS' "Nova" hosts Kaboom!, a website that invites visitors to design their own world-class pyrotechnic extravaganzas, complete with virtual explosions and musical accompaniment.