Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Since July 4th is just around the corner, today we thought we’d take a look at fireworks. Sure, they’re beautiful when they explode, but what do they do to our air quality?
We had Sarah Kramer and Shane Toomey from our Possibly Team look into this.
Sarah Kramer: Hi, Megan!
Shane Toomey: Hello!
Megan Hall: So should I be worried about the impacts of all of the fireworks displays this year?
Sarah Kramer: Let’s take a step back first…. a lot of what makes some people worry about the effects of fireworks is actually what makes them so beautiful.
Shane Toomey: It’s true! Within every firework, there are these little balls of chemicals, mostly made of metals. When these metals are ignited, they explode in bright colors and even cause special effects like sizzling or strobing!
Sarah Kramer: To explode a firework, you light a small fuse, which sets off a chain reaction that shoots the firework up into the air.
Shane Toomey: Once the firework reaches its peak height, another fuse sets off the small balls of chemicals within the center, and, BOOM!
[Firework noise]
Sarah Kramer: You get a dazzling firework explosion!
Megan Hall: Wow, that sounds awesome! But, what happens after the firework show?
Shane Toomey: After a firework explodes, the metals that were inside shoot all around in little pieces called particulate matter. That’s the black smoke you see after a firework explodes.
Sarah Kramer: These particulates travel with wind and rain until they eventually fall back to the ground.
Megan Hall: Are these little particles dangerous?
Sarah Kramer: We spoke to Professor Meredith Hastings to find out! She’s a professor at the Brown Institute for Environment and Society.
Meredith Hastings: and I lead a project called Breathe Providence that’s dedicated to understanding air quality across the city.
Shane Toomey: Meredith says, particulate matter doesn’t just come from fireworks. It comes from any time something combusts.
Meredith Hastings: So, that includes vehicles, that includes power plants, any transportation sources that use oil or gas, coal combustion is a really big source of particulate matter in our country.
Shane Toomey: And these tiny particles CAN have significant impacts on our health.
Meredith Hastings: Because those particles can actually end up in our lungs, and tiny, tiny particles can end up in our bloodstream. And those directly affect both respiratory and cardiovascular health.
Sarah Kramer: But particulate matter also makes a big impact while it’s still up in the atmosphere. They can block sunlight from reaching the ground– creating haze. This makes it harder to see, and once it settles onto plants’ leaves, it can make it harder for plants to absorb the sunlight they need to grow.
Megan Hall: How does the effect of firework shows compare to these other sources of particulate matter?
Sarah Kramer: Meredith has actually looked into that!
Meredith Hastings: So just to give you a feeling for and to put some actual numbers on your question…
Sarah Kramer: In 2023, her team compared the particulate matter in the air on a typical day in Providence to firework days and found that the particulate matter just about tripled on nights with fireworks.
Megan Hall: Triple! That sounds pretty bad.
Shane Toomey: You would think so, but they also looked at particulate matter from the wildfires that happened that summer.
Sarah Kramer: Meredith says for the brief amount of time the fireworks explode, they load more particulates in the air than wildfires….
Meredith Hastings: But they don’t last very long, and so they’re much more of like a specific almost like plume event, you know, compared to wildfires or transportation or sources like that that are continuously going for longer than fireworks.
Megan Hall: Wow! So, does that mean we don’t need to worry too much about the effects of fireworks shows?
Shane Toomey: Yes and no….
Sarah Kramer: In communities where haze is already a big issue, drone shows might be a good alternative. And if you have respiratory issues, maybe watch these shows from a distance. Otherwise, it’s not a big deal.
Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Sarah and Shane!
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the ways your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media, and WBRU.
