Pyrotechnic displays

The report about the environmental impacts of village feasts published by the Church Environment Commission is a landmark document. While acknowledging that these occasions constitute an irreplaceable feature of Maltese culture and folklore, and strengthen Malta's tourism package, the report serves to highlight the fact that these celebrations or rather, their excesses, may present a number of environmental and health concerns.

Perhaps, fireworks displays may warrant particular attention. According to the report, even though the exact figures are very difficult or impossible to obtain, the annual Maltese village feast season costs somewhere between Lm500,000 and Lm1 million in fireworks alone. Compared to its Mediterranean counterparts, Malta also has one of the worst accident records as far as pyrotechnics manufacture and use is concerned.

Apparently, the Church commission has already given the green light for the preparation of another report to assess the air quality impacts of village feast pyrotechnic displays. Quoting official sources, the report states that about 200 tonnes of chemicals, including sulphur, potassium chlorate and potassium nitrate, among several others, are employed annually in Malta for the preparation of a diverse range of pyrotechnic articles.

Under the Laws of Malta, Legal Notice 243 of 1998 as amended (Control of Fireworks and Other Explosives Regulations, the Explosives Ordinance) sets the legal framework for the management of the local pyrotechnics industry. Apart from setting provisions for the industry's modus operandi, including a strict licensing regime, the drafting of this particular legal instrument inevitably endorses principles from chemical science. Article 8, for example, provides that it is illegal to manufacture, store, transport or discharge fireworks containing mixtures of chlorates with sulphur or phosphorus. This provision stems from chemical knowledge about the highly unstable nature of such mixtures, making their manufacture and handling significantly dangerous.

Chemicals from pyrotechnics ultimately end up in the environment, initially as a milieu of air pollutants. Their dispersal and deposition eventually extends impacts to land, soil and even aquatic media. Anyone appreciably close to a fireworks display is exposed to inhaling excessive doses of potentially harmful materials. Evidence of this is the tangy taste detectable throughout or shortly after the display episode. This may partly be attributed to airborne gaseous or aerosol substances dissolving in saliva.

Though more often of a short-term nature, eye and respiratory irritations are not uncommon among some unlucky viewers or those who ignore safety measures and get too close to the pyrotechnics display or, even worse, the discharge sites themselves. A common belief may be that the cause of eye or respiratory discomfort experienced by spectators lies squarely with particulate matter from exploding fireworks. However, more usually, the cause involves a wide range of potentially harmful pyrotechnics reaction products interacting synergistically and thus provoking the temporary discomfort.

Meteorological conditions and proximity of the fireworks discharge sites to inhabited areas are determining factors as far as the impacts on spectators or the environment are concerned. The latter factor is however regulated by law.

The intermittent nature of pyrotechnic displays and given that, for the vast majority of the public, exposure episodes are generally isolated and relatively rare, are also significant for impact assessment purposes.

The proposals put forward by the Church commission intended to ensure higher safety and management standards for local pyrotechnic factories are certainly most welcome. These include establishing stricter criteria for the issuing of licences, the regular screening of practitioners, the engagement of safety officers at fireworks factories, and also upgrading pyrotechnicians' knowledge in the field by providing relevant educational programmes covering various aspects including risk management.

Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the positive side in implementing these measures could be offset by an arguably contentious interpretation in the applicability of a proposed EU directive relating to the sales and use of pyrotechnics articles. This directive is expected to enter into force in two years' time. Apparently, locally manufactured firework artefacts are already listed within the most dangerous category in this proposed directive. However, according to the Church commission's report, this EU legal regime may be inapplicable to Malta since the local pyrotechnics industry arguably lacks a commercial standing.

The noise impact assessment presented in the report is probably the most revealing aspect in the entire document. LN 243 of 1998 as amended does not include any provision regulating noise from fireworks. It is difficult not to agree with the Church commission that the time may be ripe to take stock of the situation and possibly amend the law such that, somehow, limits on noise levels from fireworks are set.

The commission's view is substantiated by a representative study showing how noise levels from firework displays in village feasts may easily exceed the 120 dBA threshold which the study considers as a maximum acceptable noise limit. But then, as stated in the report itself, agreeing on a noise level maximum acceptable limit may not be so straightforward after all.

The 120 dBA threshold may even be too high in terms of both human health and architectural heritage impacts. But, as usual, the issue goes beyond regulating noise levels by law. Say, how would any legal provisions in this regard be adequately enforced when no less than about 100 village feasts are held annually, most of them concentrated in the summer months? The fact that several village feasts coincide during the same week probably makes the setting up of an effective noise monitoring system even more difficult and expensive. However, given that specific times for discharging fireworks is already regulated by law as provided in the First Schedule of the Legal Notice, part of the necessary logistic framework for the purposes of implementing such a system already exists.

For most of us, it may be hardly possible to imagine a village feast without pyro-technics. But who says that we should altogether dismiss firework displays or festivals? Nevertheless, at a day and age when so much money and effort is rightly invested in assessing the environmental impacts of most major projects and developments, a full-scale scientific analysis of the impacts deriving from the pyro-technics industry may not be such a bad idea.

The ultimate aim would be to make appreciation of the pyrotechnics' artistry more acceptable to society and the environment itself.

Alan Pulis, B.Ed. (Hons), Dip. Env. Sc., M.Sc. (Lond.), teaches Environmental Science and Chemistry at the Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School in Naxxar.