Environmental contamination from fireworks is a nasty reality in Malta that impacts public health and must be addressed by a reduction in the volume of displays, according to chemical expert Alfred Vella.

Prof. Vella led the inquiry commissioned in September 2010 following a spate of tragic firework accidents.

While the Home Affairs Ministry said the amendments to fireworks regulations are based on the inquiry’s report, Prof Vella said: “I am not at all satisfied with these amendments. I think they should have gone a lot further.

“We have to understand that fireworks exact a cost even when no accidents occur – there is widespread contamination of the environment from chemical waste from fireworks that is not negligible.”

Studies conducted by Prof. Vella’s research group at the University of Malta show the presence of chemical contamination from fireworks in the environment. This involves toxic substances that are known to be a health concern especially to pregnant women, foetuses and infants, and can contaminate food and water.

“This contamination will not be addressed unless the volume of displays is reduced,” Prof. Vella said. Fireworks create, as waste, a cloud of dust in the air that has the capacity to produce effects that are long lasting: the chemicals in these wastes have been measured at scores of dust-monitoring stations sited all over Malta and Gozo, some of which were several kilometres away from the sites of displays.

‘World record of contamination’

“We probably have a world record of perchlorate contamination in this country, judging from what is published in scientific literature. Perchlorate is present in dust fall as it deposits during June and remains in dust fall that comes down during all subsequent months in decreasing amounts at least until February. It picks up again as the summer months approach and the cycle is repeated, year on year,” Prof. Vella said.

He stressed the evidence is clear: perchlorate and other chemicals are present in this dust because it is put there by the burning of fireworks.

“Chemical contamination from fireworks is affecting some of the food that we eat and, occasionally, even the water we drink. We also consume this substance through ingestion of dust on our hands and this is especially true of infants and children.

“When people ingest these materials, they are being exposed to very low levels of poisonous substances and science does not know what the effect on health of such exposure can be, especially when the exposure persists over a long time,” Prof. Vella said.

“We should not be the laboratory rats of the world to see the full impact of this contamination on our health, although we must have been exposed to this for decades,” he added.

Prof. Vella drew attention to international scientific evidence showing that perchlorate is a nasty chemical, and in countries like the United States, where perchlorate is sometimes found in drinking water due to contamination from industrial sources, there are extremely low limits imposed on its intake in diet.

Prof. Vella’s main concern on the new regulations is that the amount of potassium perchlorate that each factory can use per year remains uncontrolled.

“You can buy as much as you like to convert the stuff into the colourless loud bangers that not everybody appreciates.

“Without this cap on perchlorate, there is almost no limit on the amount of fireworks that can be manufactured. The net result is that we are tolerating a much larger amount of fireworks than we should,” he said.

A reduction in the volume of fireworks manu-factured would also serve to protect the pyrotechnicians themselves because the Vella Commission report had shown that human factors were likely the main cause of the accidents.

“I remain unhappy with this situation and am not confident that the future for fireworks in Malta is sufficiently safe; not for the fireworks manufacturers and certainly not for the general population,” Prof. Vella said.

The new regulations did adopt the commission’s proposed ban on mixtures combining potassium chlorate (a different chemical) and metals, which Prof. Vella welcomed, saying it was a critical matter.