Will my fireworks blow up the environment?
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Growing up, the 4th of July was second only to Christmas when it came to the holiday hierarchy. It's was a magical day that symbolized the freedom to blow stuff up from morning 'til night, tie fuses together just to see what would happen, and basically live out all of our collective pyrotechnical fantasies without any fear of repercussions. Not that I want to spoil that for anyone else -- but, as an adult, it seems pretty obvious that blowing up plastic bombs filled with heavy metals over our lakes and rivers can't be all that good for the environment -- and it's not. Sigh.
Fireworks are slowly becoming more eco-friendly -- or less environmentally destructive, depending on how you look at it -- but they still contain a lot of dangerous chemicals, such as potassium perchlorate, that can be harmful to your health and to the environment. Perchlorate, being one of the biggest culprits, has been linked with thyroid damage, especially when it's mixed with barium or copper.
Sadly, at this point, there's not much you can do to green your fireworks display except to not have one. As an upstanding American pyromaniac, that's really not an option I'm OK with. Until manufacturers start marketing greener fireworks, you can only do your best to choose fireworks that are as smokeless as possible. We've come a long way since mercury-filled rockets awed 4th of July crowds, but still the remnants of Independence Day linger in our air and water well into August.
[via Treehugger]
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