Will we ever learn? How many more lives need be sacrificed before the government takes action on fireworks factories? How many more tragedies before the situation is taken in hand?
Adding to the long line of accidents caused by fireworks, a 62-year-old man died and another is critical in hospital following an explosion at St Catherine fireworks factory in Zurrieq, on Wednesday.
It is about time this crazy ‘hobby’ is reined in. The authorities need to bite the bullet and sort this problem out once and for all.
There are many aspects to pyrotechnics and they are not all negative, but unfortunately, the negatives are overpowering.
The most urgent aspect to be dealt with is safety. Although there have been casualties among bystanders, the worst toll of deaths and serious injuries happen to the people who manufacture fireworks.
Any injury, let alone fatality, caused by fireworks should not be acceptable and we should all demand that something is done about it.
What has the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) done since the last tragedy? Every time there is a fireworks factory explosion, and they do occur quite regularly, the politicians turn up at funerals and we have a wave of chest beating and national mourning.
We hear a lot of rhetoric about how things are going to finally happen to make the factories safer – explosives can never be safe – yet, preventable accidents keep happening.
The problem is that we have too many pyrotechnic factories and too many amateurs working in them. The government must cut down the number of licenses granted to premises where fireworks are made and the people making them.
Licenses must only be granted to the premises that comply with stringent health and safety requirements, and the criteria should include that they are nowhere near residences.
People working with fireworks should have certification of proper training and they must all have insurance to cover their families’ needs if the worst occurs.
The next negative aspect is the noise and other pollution caused by fireworks, especially the petards that get more powerful year by year – being louder is part of the competition between the different parishes – that we are subjected to every day in the summer months.
Despite a campaign in my column in The Sunday Times, culminating in a petition presented to Parliament in 2001, to curb the noisy petards and the Curia’s survey pointing out the risks posed by fireworks, a couple of years ago, nothing has changed.
“This mortali business is really getting out of hand. Practically every weekend public peace is severely disturbed by the continuous blasts occasioned by the firing of these firecrackers.
“…The ear-splitting and nerve-shattering bangs are flouting every citizens’ right to peace in his own home”.
I am not quoting myself here, but W. Agius-Gilibert, from Sliema, writing to The Times in September 1959.
Since then the bangs have increased enormously in volume and frequency. Noise from exploding fireworks can top 130 decibels. Acoustic health specialists have shown that exposure to 105 dB for one hour can damage hearing.
We now, 48 years later, have the blitz every day in the summer, starting early and finishing very late, sometimes in the early hours of the next day, giving us a small lull until the next bombardment. To date, the letters to the press have also increased in frequency and numbers, to no avail.
But we are not alone. Like global warming, all countries have a problem with pyrotechnic pollution. Every year, some 1,450 tonnes of fireworks are set off in Switzerland.
In India, the Supreme Court passed orders seeking adherence to anti-noise pollution norms and standards for firecrackers in September 2001.
The Delhi Pollution Control Committee sent a notification to the Delhi Police informing them about the type of firecrackers that violate the prescribed limit of 125 decibels at a distance of four metres from the point of bursting.
It prohibits setting of crackers in the silence zones (that is the areas within 100 metres of hospitals, educational institutions, courts and religious places). Firecrackers can be burst only between 6pm to 10pm.
Just before the millennium celebrations a global warning and a call for action was sent out by environmentalists in Sweden, Germany and Australia asking the world community to take a stand against 21st century air pollution and stop the globe-circling fireworks displays.
A large percentage of Swedish citizens now favour a total ban.
The Sweden-based “Heavy Metal Bulletin” estimated that the millennial celebrations shot 124 tons of lead into the air of the European Union countries. The spectacular show above Australia’s Sydney Harbour filled the air with an estimated six tons of lead and in the US fireworks shows generate an estimated 90 tons of sky-borne lead pollution.
Research by US government scientists showed that the “Fourth of July” fireworks displays often held over lakes and other bodies of water can pollute the water with perchlorate.
It established that fireworks displays were a source of perchlorate contamination by analysing water in an Oklahoma lake before and after fireworks displays in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Within 14 hours after the fireworks, perchlorate levels rose 24 to 1,028 times above background levels. Levels peaked about 24 hours after the display, and then decreased to the pre-fireworks background within 20 to 80 days.
The Environmental Protection Agency noted “concerns have arisen over the effects of environmental perchlorate on human health and wildlife. Sources of perchlorate range from lightning and certain fertilizers to the perchlorate compounds in rocket fuel and explosives.”
Now, although more people complain about the noise, many still love the colourful displays, and so do I. But we do have too many displays and most people don’t realise that fireworks also pollute the air with the fallout of heavy metals, dust and fumes, and the ground with dangerous litter.
All the beautiful colours are toxic. The bright green designs are made with barium, which is extremely poisonous and radioactive. The blazing reds are produced with lithium and strontium and purple colours with rubidium, which is radioactive and can replace calcium in the body.
The blues contain copper compounds that cause dioxin pollution. According to New Scientist (3 July, 1999), fireworks cause dioxin pollution and blue fireworks release the most dioxins.
The brilliant whites contain aluminium and titanium. Those dreadful petards not only harm our eardrums and nerves, but can also cause contact dermatitis.
Cadmium found in zinc, copper and lead (all used in firework production) is used in nuclear reactors.
And the propellant ammonium perchlorate can contaminate ground and surface waters as discovered by US research, and can disrupt thyroid functions.
Yes, fireworks displays are beautiful and I would not want to see them disappear, but right now we have far too many and they are out of control.
Which party will bite the bullet on this important issue?

Diamonds are forever
Thank you Queen Elizabeth, for giving us a very much-appreciated touristic boost. The Queen and her husband Prince Philip are stopping over in Malta on Tuesday, their 60th wedding anniversary, attracting welcome international publicity.
In this age of transitory marriages, the Queen’s generation still holds to the “till death us do part” vow.
The royal couple will be meeting other couples that also married 60 years ago and are celebrating their diamond anniversary – a wonderful piece of PR for the British Royal Family and for Malta.
I guess that Malta revokes happy memories for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip served in Malta with the Royal Navy between 1949 and 1951, when besides the fact that the early years of marriage are usually the happiest, the Queen’s father, King George V was still alive, so Princess Elizabeth was still relatively care free and she would not have been thinking of the enormous responsibility she would be taking on her young shoulders soon after.

pamelapacehansen@gmail.com