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Working Towards an Eco-Friendly Fireworks Display
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Jul 04, 2008 08:45 PM
from the patriotism-through-making-things-explode dept.
from the patriotism-through-making-things-explode dept.
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."
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Really? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
hello, I'm not American, don't live in America (quite far away from it) and the article specifically addresses the closeness to July 4th, the American holiday.
Fireworks drive away evil spirits (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Just in... military works towards real intelligence...
The only real eco friendly fireworks are the ones that we dont use. Seriously, celebrating indepd
*pout* (Score:5, Funny)
Re:*pout* (Score:5, Funny)
Several hundred acres of burning rain forest would be pretty exciting.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
PETA won't be satisfied (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
PETA activists need therapy. rubbing them with bacon and putting them in a room with junkyard dogs would do wonders for their attitude on dog rights
Re: (Score:2)
They want to get rid of fireworks completely because they scare dogs [helpinganimals.com].
Melatonin apparently works as a cheap tranquilizer for dogs. It doesn't make the dog sleepy as it does humans, just calms them down. And dosage is not much a problem as the lethal dose is several hundred times the effective dose.
Re:PETA won't be satisfied (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:PETA vs Gun Lobby (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 sacrifi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"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
For better safety don't eat the fireworks (Score:5, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
Re:For better safety don't eat the fireworks (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, they have lakes in those confined spaces?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, they have lakes in those confined spaces?
You've obviously never been to Vegas.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For better safety don't eat the fireworks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
DONT eat my fireworks?!
BRILLIANT!
Re: (Score:2)
Jeez: perchlorate causes thyroid problems.... Well don't eat the firework and don't inhale the gases.
Well we dont eat the fireworks, but there is no excaping the gases in my town. Its literally like a dense fog all over the city, possibly county, tonight. Amazing really, but there is no avoiding the smoke unless you stay inside, but then guess what? You cant see them.
I wonder... (Score:2, Insightful)
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: (Score:2)
> 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...
Why do you say that?
Re: (Score:2)
Most fireworks shows I know of in the USA happen from land over water. Why do you say you doubt they would do that?
At Disney World I know they shoot the fireworks from either on land or near land over the water.
Wonder NO more! (Score:2)
Well, just so you know, they do set fireworks off over the ocean in America.
In California, at Point Arena, they blast them off of the public pier, and in Fort Bragg, they shoot them off of the bluff top and right into the Pacific Ocean.
Oh, and they pollute the ocean with toxic chemicals from the abandoned lumber mill around here also.
It's the American way after-all.
Re: (Score:2)
And in Chicago they shoot them off over Lake Michigan.
In Peoria, they shoot them off over the Illinois River.
In fact, most places strongly prefer to shoot fireworks off over water - because there is no chance of catching the water on fire.
Now, if they were somehow bouncing them off the water, that would be something unusual and definitely something worth seeing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not Cleveland, then?
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, the famous /. reflexive America bashing. Fact is however that where water is available to shoot them over, it is virtually always done. (For safety and because the reflections on the water are lovely...) In the county where I live (which just misses being an island) every major show is over water, as are the majority of the smaller shows
Re: (Score:2)
More likely, says Occam, it is because if you shoot them *up*, then more people can see them - which is, after all, the fireworks raison d'etre...
Pff. (Score:2, Funny)
Polluting the environment and fireworks... (Score:2)
Cause you keep stealing those "feathers" from Chinese who are the real champions of both disciplines?
How about some perspective? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about some perspective? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Not only is it a false dichotomy, but the GP writes off "A once a year, thousand times spike in a trace amount chemical" as a non-event without providing a shred of evidence to back up the assertion.
The State of California sets 6 micrograms/liter as the max allowable limit [ca.gov]
and according to TFA, the amount of perchlorate spikes to 44.204 micrograms/liter.
/And no, the "but I'm not in California" line of logic does not apply
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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.
plastic water bottle.. (Score:2)
How many plastic water bottles... find their way into the same lake, and how long does it take them to dissipate?
Doctor: You appear to have a very strange cylindrical lump in your thyroid gland.
Patient: Oh my, is it serious?!
Great, just great (Score:2)
How about dealing with the real problem (Score:2)
i.e., explosives in the hands of non-experts, instead? It boggles the mind that in this safety-obsessed world it's still possible to randomly spray your general vicinity with things that go BOOM. In my observation, the kind of people who buy fireworks are often the ones who can't be trusted to be responsible with them. There's something about fireworks that turns normal people into pyromaniacs.
1000 times normal? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Erm, this is already the case for shotgun shells. Lead poisoning in waterfowl led to the banning of lead-based shotgun pellets.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's why I buy only depleted uranium shot loads!
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
Already happened. Remember depleted uranium?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 [aiaa.org], but no more so than