Working Towards an Eco-Friendly Fireworks Display

phobos13013 writes "Here's an article just in time for 4th of July fireworks shows! The ACS's Chemical and Engineering News provides a fairly technical discussion about the hazardous chemicals in modern fireworks displays. Perchlorate is currently the oxidizer of choice in fireworks, but it is also known to be a thyroid blocker. Since perchlorates are water-soluble anions, they dissolve into groundwater quickly. A study performed last summer over a lake in Ada, Oklahoma showed that less than a day after a fireworks display, the lake's chlorate levels jumped by a factor of 1,000. It took weeks for the levels to drop back down to their baseline. On the other hand, heavy metals are used to produce the pretty colors typically associated with the best fireworks. The trend is to start using nitrogen-based oxidizing fireworks; they produce less smoke, which means a smaller amount of colorizing agents can be used in displays."

Comments

Really?

[NuclearError]

Just in time? I just finished burning all of my fireworks. Maybe in time for next year...

Re:Really?

[crossmr]

I was thinking that it wasn't "just in time" but instead a moment of opportunity because the rest of the year no one would care.

Fireworks drive away evil spirits

[RevWaldo]

Fireworks drive away evil spirits, so, you know, really, the more poisonous the better.

*pout*

[Perseid]

But if they can only set off green fireworks that'll make for a pretty boring show.

Re:*pout*

[the_other_one]

Several hundred acres of burning rain forest would be pretty exciting.

Re:*pout*

[ConceptJunkie]

But green's my favorite color!

Actually I'm really enjoying the new innovations that don't have to do with color. Every year at the fireworks display at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, VA near where I live they usually show a new concept. One year was the rocket that bursts in a ring. Then they made a smiley face using two blue dots for eyes and several pink dots for a mouth inside the circle. Then they came up with a circle with a heart in it and last night they had rockets that burst in a star pattern. The star pattern wasn't as well-defined as the smiley and the heart, but it was still really cool.

My 12-year-old joked that soon we'd start hearing reports about how fireworks contribute to global warming. I'm all for environmental considerations, and the idea of eliminating heavy metals and perchlorates is really great, but I am so sick of the uninformed hysteria that usually accompanies the topic.

PETA won't be satisfied

[kunwon1]

They want to get rid of fireworks completely because they scare dogs.

Re:PETA won't be satisfied

[DeadChobi]

The only reason that activist is bothered by it is because she doesn't like fireworks. She had no problems with vacuuming, even though that's another loud noise that her dog doesn't like.

Re:PETA won't be satisfied

[Omestes]

Exaggerate much?

I dislike PETA as much as the next guy, but your taking this a bit far.

My pets panic on the fourth and on New Years. I live in suburbia like most people. How many people ACTUALLY have hunting dogs? Really? What percentage?

Not many, anymore, I'd guess, times have moved on.

Just because a sport has a traditions, doesn't make it okay. Bullfighting and Cockfighting stretch back a bit, therefore throwing Christians to the lions and gladiatorial combat should be fine too? Should Human sacrifice also be fine just because its traditional to certain cultures? Times move on, as do values, this is generally considered a good thing.

I don't find torturing animals for our amusement fine, just because some idiotic older cultures did so. Hurting animals for our amusement is idiotic, do we really need to cause pain to be happy? I would consider this a sad bit of evidence for humanity.

Sure, animals should be for food, and skins, but killing them for shits and giggles is kind of dubious.

If we can make environmentally friendly fireworks, I really don't see any reason to get pissed. Just as I don't see any reason to get mad at prohibiting seeing other entities pain (for its own sake) as a bad thing.

Re:PETA won't be satisfied

[couchslug]

"How many people ACTUALLY have hunting dogs? Really? What percentage?"

That depends on where you live. Many people in rural and semi-rural areas ("flyover country" to the Slashdotian Urban Sophisticates) have hunting dogs. I don't hunt with dogs so I don't have a "percentage" figure, but packs are quite common in the Southeast.

"Sure, animals should be for food, and skins, but killing them for shits and giggles is kind of dubious."

We don't need the skins for survival and meat is optional, so why exempt those uses? Bossy is just as dead when the pneumatic bolt shatters her skull as Bambi is when the broadhead crashes through her heart.

Why, exactly, should we as apex predators not hunt if it we wish to do so?

If you prefer not to hunt, then don't. It is that simple. There are cities, where those who like urban life should stay so as not to be confronted with anything different. There are other areas for those who like a different lifestyle. We need never meet or affect each other.

For better safety don't eat the fireworks

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Jeez: perchlorate causes thyroid problems.... Well don't eat the firework and don't inhale the gases.

How about **watching** the fireworks instead? Yeah I know that's an outlandish idea, but try it some time... you see all these pretty patterns!

Compared to all the tailpipe emissions of people driving to the firework display, the chemicals used on the lawns they are sitting on, the peroxide the "blonds" all used to bleach their hair etc etc, the chemicals in the actual fireworks are insignificant.

Re:For better safety don't eat the fireworks

[turtledawn]

TFineA addresses this issue: the company they profile currently makes most of their sales to Vegas shows, professional wrestling events, and rock concerts, where you do in fact have people in a confined space breathing the fumes and exposed to particulates night after night after night. The other big market is the military, for signal flares and training aids. Again, fairly regular exposure.

In all, some interesting chemistry.

Re:For better safety don't eat the fireworks

[phobos13013]

Great idea to avoid exposure, except that it doesnt address the issue pointed out IN THE SUMMARY, that says the endocrine disrupters are getting into THE WATER SUPPLY. If you go swimming in that lake they shoot your fireworks over even a week after the event, you are being exposed to very high doses! Unless of course you live in a county where your environmental regulator has said it is not acceptable use as recreational water source, which is evidence of the symptom itself. Also, many of the drinking water supplies come from some of these water supplies, as a result, we may be consuming some of these chemicals. Sure, water treatment may address some of them, but then there is the problem of disinfection by-products which is a problem all in itself. All in all, the point is, many of the activities we partake in, are ruining the health of surroundings, and as a result, is ruining the health of our species...

Re:For better safety don't eat the fireworks

[Spy der Mann]

Jeez: perchlorate causes thyroid problems.... Well don't eat the firework and don't inhale the gases.

How about **watching** the fireworks instead

Fine - I'll watch them, not without remembering that there are many places in the world where people manufacture fireworks with their bare hands, and are in direct contact with the aforementioned toxic materials. Thank you for your kind interest.

Re:For better safety don't eat the fireworks

[toddestan]

Wow, they have lakes in those confined spaces?

You've obviously never been to Vegas.

Re:Biodegradable bullets is next

[damnbunni]

Erm, this is already the case for shotgun shells. Lead poisoning in waterfowl led to the banning of lead-based shotgun pellets.

Re:PETA vs Gun Lobby

[ColdWetDog]

In fact hunters force their dogs to go with them when they do fire off those loud noise making things.

One of my Labrador Retrievers, who is trained as a "gun dog", goes ballistic when he hears fireworks go off. He thinks they are shotguns which means that somebody is out hunting which means he should be doing the same.

He gets very upset when he finds out that this isn't the case. It just depends on how the dog is raised. Operant conditioning and all that.

I wonder...

[spydabyte]

...if these levels are affected by the show I just saw.
I'm currently in Barcelona, Spain and witnessed the best July 4th Fireworks show I have ever seen, including any Disney display.

But the most relevant part was that they shot fireworks off the pier into the mar, sea, which exploded off of the water, something I doubt they would do in America...

Re:I wonder...

[capnkr]

I live aboard a boat in America, and watched them shot off over water from my dock tonight. It's neat, the reflections...

I'm glad that some folks think of things like in TFA, but at the same time - some things should just be left pretty much as they are. Though the levels in that lake may have risen to 1000 times normal (and one of the sampling sites was next to and between the "Ignition site"), they were back to normal in 20-80 days:

After the fireworks displays, perchlorate concentrations decreased toward the background level within 20 to 80 days, with the rate of attenuation correlating to surface water temperature. Adsorption tests indicate that sediments underlying the water column have limited (~100 nmol/g) capacity to remove perchlorate via chemical adsorption. Microcosms showed comparatively rapid intrinsic perchlorate degradation in the absence of nitrate consistent with the observed disappearance of perchlorate from the study site. This suggests that at sites with appropriate biogeochemical conditions, natural attenuation may be an important factor affecting the fate of perchlorate following fireworks displays.

Some things are worth a little danger, and thus also a little caution, or life wouldn't be so much fun...

Pff.

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Polluting the environment and fireworks are the two things America does best. Why do you hate us?

How about some perspective?

[camperdave]

A once a year, thousand times spike in a trace amount chemical, and it dissipates within a month? Let's get a little perspective? How many plastic water bottles and cigarette butts find their way into the same lake, and how long does it take them to dissipate? How much waste comes out of the nearest McDonald's location in a single day? From the nearest coal fired power plant? There are bigger problems to deal with than a dubious annual spike in a trace chemical.

Re:How about some perspective?

[phobos13013]

You create a false dichotomy between dealing with this problem and dealing with the others. Fact is, we don't deal with any of the problems to any significant extent. I say we tackle all these problems simultaneously why choose one then the other, etc. And to boot, this article suggests a practical option that exists now, which is switching the way we produce fireworks today!

Re:How about some perspective?

[drinkypoo]

There are bigger problems to deal with than a dubious annual spike in a trace chemical.

How do you know? Maybe that once-a-month event has serious, long-term repercussions that we won't learn about for decades. Doesn't necessarily mean we have to stop, but we should either stop or make sure we don't need to stop :P

Re:How about some perspective?

[FrostDust]

So, you'd be ok if your town decided to annually fill your house with 1000 times the normal amount of chlorine gas, and you had to wait a month for it to dissipate? I mean, it's only once a year, right?

Re:How about some perspective?

[konohitowa]

I think this illustrates the GPs point. Since typical indoor Cl2 levels tend to be in the PPT range and occupational hazard levels are capped by OSHA at 1 PPM, a 1000 time increase would still trend toward putting you within an "acceptable" limit for long term exposure (1PPM is roughly the exposure you get from going for a swim in a chlorinated pool).

Now, if I had to put up with a 1000-fold increase in whining from my kids for a month, that would be another matter altogether.

Re:Biodegradable bullets is next

[Martin Blank]

Depleted uranium is used for reasons that have nothing to do with lead toxicity, but instead for its density and its self-sharpening trait. Keeping the penetrating point and maximum kinetic energy is important when punching through armor.

That said, there are growing areas banning lead bullets, including sometimes for law enforcement, due to the perceived health risk.

Re:Wonder NO more!

[chromatic]

In fact, most places strongly prefer to shoot fireworks off over water - because there is no chance of catching the water on fire.

Not Cleveland, then?

Re:Biodegradable bullets is next

[Smidge204]

That's why I buy only depleted uranium shot loads!

=Smidge=

Ada, Oklahoma

[custerfluck]

For the record, the fireworks sucked this year in Ada.

Re:What about the Excess Nitrogen

[belg4mit]

This is *not* insightful (and I'm wasting my change to mod it overrated to try and correct it).

1) Nitrogen is one of the most available chemicals on the planet.
2) *Nitrates* are the biologically available form of nitrogen.
3) Farmers dump hundreds of pounds to tons of fertilizer on their fields; depending on crop, soil, etc.
4) As far as I can tell, nitrates are not a major combustion product of nitrocellulose. You can get some
      nitrogen dioxide as a seconday byproduct, but no more so than anything else burned in
      the atmopshere at high temperatures, including perchlorate fireworks. The main effect of which would
      seem to be some minor acidification; NO2 -> N2O4, N2O4 + H2O -> HNO2 + HNO3.