Fireworks Are Harmfull To Your Health

Who doesn’t love the beautiful display of fireworks on a happy celebration of any event? Probably just the people who don’t like loud noises, and some people who are environmentally friendly. While it looks all great and pretty, fireworks aren’t only damaging to the environment and cause pollution, it is also quite harmful to human health, plant health and animal health.

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Most importantly, the air quality is damaged by the use of fireworks. It creates a significant amount of firework smoke, which potentially contains many harmful substances including metals that are considered as health hazards. According to recent studies, many countries including Canada, Europe, China, and India have witnessed increased firework pollution in their air quality, but since air is a shared resource, nobody seems to care about it in particular.

That’s the problematic part. Since air is a shared resource, its used by everyone, and it doesn’t see any geographical boundaries. For example, air pollution occurring in one country may carry all the bad pollutants to another country and they will suffer for the actions of someone else. Therefore, air quality is something that requires a mutual action.

Another problem is that there are currently no laws and restrictions on the use of fireworks in most parts of the world. Anybody anywhere can burn as much of the fireworks as they want and nobody would ever ask for a report for that, unlike industrial air pollution. That is the reason that people end up burning firecrackers indiscriminately and nobody cares about the accountability.

Ever wondered what the firecrackers we use are made of? They are made of many different toxic substances that are used in their manufacturing process. When we burn them, all of them basically leaks out into the air and we get directly exposed to them.

Here are some of the ways in which fireworks are dangerous to our health :

Contains Arsenic
Arsenic is a very dangerous heavy metal. While it’s not used for the burning purposes, it is additionally added to the firecrackers by many producers for the stability, oxidization and better results in burning of the crackers. Exposure to arsenic can lead to increased amount of toxicity. You can imagine the harmful health effects of arsenic by considering the fact that it’s used as a rat poison, and kills it instantly once the rat eats it. In human beings, arsenic can cause several problems such as respiratory problems, lung diseases, skin cancer, bladder cancer, lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes.

Emits particulate matter
Particulate matter is a class of air pollution which consists of very small particles of harmful pollutants that floats in the air after the burning. They can be easily inhaled by us and cause problems. Particulate matter is classified into two groups mainly. PM10 and PM2.5. The PM10 type of particulate matter has a large particle size, therefore it can be stopped by the natural filtering layer of our body’s air track to some extent. However, the PM2.5 is extremely small, so small that it can easily pass the filter, enter the blood-brain barrier to damage brain, and even penetrate inside our cells to cause dangerous health issues. PM2.5 is usually found in cigarette smoke as well, which is one reason that it is considered a very dangerous habit.

Sulfur and SOx
Sulfur is used in the crackers for burning. It is not human-friendly itself, and it also produces harmful SOx gases, including sulfur monoxide and sulfur dioxide. These gases are considered as major sources of pollution, and they have damaging effects on human health.

Carbon and COx
Carbon is used in the crackers for burning. Like any burning process, fireworks also produce a lot of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. You probably know what carbon dioxide means to human health. Although, we shouldn’t ignore the potential health hazards of carbon monoxide. This gas is called as a silent killer by many scientists. It is so potent that it can mimic the function of oxygen in our body. When we breathe in this gas, it attaches to the places where oxygen should attach, and our body gets deprived off the oxygen that we need to survive.

I’m sure you know how important oxygen is for us, right? It is also known to cause blue baby syndrome, in which the baby turns blue due to oxygen deficiency and deaths have also been recorded. Continuous exposure to carbon monoxide has caused deaths of entire families, for instance, a family slept in an unventilated room in presence of a gas heater which kept producing carbon monoxide. They all slept but never woke up. Anyway, fireworks probably don’t give us that amount of exposure. But it’s always good to know what you’re actually inhaling. This gas is also found in cigarette smoke, which is another reason for it being so dangerous.

Conclusion
Asthma patients are severely prone to the health effects of fireworks and it’s especially dangerous for them. People with respiratory problems should completely avoid fireworks in all possible ways. There are several other harmful substances present in fireworks, such as manganese (a heavy metal like arsenic), potassium perchlorate, strontium nitrate, aluminum, barium nitrate and sodium oxalate. The names are enough to give an idea about what it can do to our body. The take-home message is that there are several other ways to celebrate an event or a victory other than doing something that pollutes your environment, the air that you breathe and damages your health.

Disclaimer
Please note that individual results will vary from person to person. All and any information and statements contained in this article are not intended to replace your doctor’s advice or treatment. We do not provide medical advice, prescription, or diagnose illness. Therefore, our views and nutritional statements are not intended to replace your doctor’s medical advice. If you have a health concern or condition, see your doctor before starting anything on your own.