ZFor two years, the Federal Ministry of the Interior had banned the sale of fireworks. It’s allowed again this year, but it’s no longer offered in many hardware stores. Way of environmental protection, animal welfare and sustainability, it is said, and the customers would have wanted that.
There are also fewer places where fireworks can be set off, as municipalities have increasingly closed zones in their city centers in recent years. No fireworks may be brought there on New Year’s Eve and none may be burned off. The cities argue that this guarantees security and order and protects life and limb.
The President of the German Medical Association, Klaus Reinhardt, recently spoke out in favor of fireworks being permanently and comprehensively banned. The “unregulated banging” is “bad for the environment and climate and repeatedly leads to serious injuries”.
The police union made a similar statement, adding that given the tense situation in hospitals, it is irresponsible to subject hospital staff to even greater stress without compelling reason and without necessity. The Bremen environment senator said that for her “firecrackers had finally fallen out of time”.
Without question, fireworks are dirty and dangerous. But how dirty and dangerous is it exactly, and is it even worth banning?
The German Environmental Aid has been fighting for years to ensure that the topic of fine dust is prominent in the media as soon as New Year’s Eve is around the corner. Particulate matter, she argues, has “the most massive effects” on human health, so fireworks should be abolished as “poisoning the air”. In 2019, she “lamented” 98 cities, asking them to ban fireworks. There is actually no such thing as “complaining”, only accusations and accusations.
Legally, this action had no consequences, but the topic was quickly on everyone’s lips. At the time, Karl Lauterbach tweeted about the result of a survey that the majority of Germans were in favor of a ban: “We should take this up in the Bundestag for next year. A ban on firecrackers protects people from fine dust, animals from panic attacks and the environment from CO2.”
Heart attacks, hardening of the arteries, dementia
It’s true, fireworks release particulate matter. The Federal Environment Agency has calculated that 2050 tons of fine dust are thrown into the air every year. That is almost one percent of the total amount of fine dust released in Germany every year. By the way, the office corrected its previous figures. By 2021, it was assumed that the amount of fine dust from fireworks would be more than twice as large. The influence was therefore overestimated for a long time.
The Munich epidemiologist Annette Peters explains the consequences of fine dust on health as follows: During the combustion process, particles are thrown into the air and then inhaled. Because they are so small, the particles can penetrate deep into the lungs. There is actually a good defense system that transports this fine dust away. But then scavenger cells become active deep in the lungs, which also damage the lung tissue with the soot particles. At the same time, messenger substances get into the blood, which in turn can trigger heart attacks, hardening of the arteries, dementia or strokes. The World Health Organization now puts particulate matter on the same level as risks such as high blood pressure.
