Restrict Fireworks

The Evidence for June 2009

Jun 15, Clevedon fireworks blaze director disqualified for five years, This is Somerset

The director of a Clevedon fireworks factory which exploded following safety breaches in 2006 has been banned from acting as a director for five years.

But due to his impoverished status Andrew Collins, 33, will only have to pay fines of £300 for the failures which contributed to the massive fire that also wrecked a neighbouring business.

Sitting at Bristol Crown Court yesterday, Judge Julian Lambert also banned him from driving for six months as an additional punishment under sentencing guidelines, despite no driving offence being committed.

Collins, of Wemberham Crescent, Yatton, had earlier pleaded guilty to two out of seven charges brought against him by North Somerset Council's trading standards department following its biggest ever investigation.

He had also pleaded guilty to three of seven charges on behalf of Firemagic Ltd, as the company's sole director.

Both Mr Collins and the company pleaded guilty to counts of failure to take appropriate measures to limit the extent of fire or explosion and failure to protect persons from the effects of fire or explosion.

The company also pleaded guilty to the charge of storing explosives in excess of the maximum quantity licensed.

The company was fined £5,000 for each charges, which the judge admitted were entirely nominal because of its inability to pay.

Sentencing Collins Judge Lambert said: "The company is effectively defunct and if these fines put it out of business then good.

"Fireworks are explosives and the state is entitled to demand absolute compliance with the regulations governing their safe use.

"These are not technical regulations, they deal with public safety.

"Training was so inadequate that when fire broke out workers tried to tackle it themselves against the regulations, putting their health and safety and ultimately their lives at risk.

"Figures for damage exceeded £300,000 and one man had his business ruined."

He added Collins, a father-of-four who now has no job or income, had brought the company to its knees and had acted in a way which left him with no choice but to ban him as a director for a significant period of time.

He also said even after the fire the company continued to exceed the limits of its firework storage licence.

He didn't order Collins to pay the council's costs, which ran into six figures, because of his inability to pay.

At an earlier part of the hearing on Friday, the court was guided through Firemagic's accounts for the past two years by their former accountant Richard Maltby, of Milston Langdon, themselves owed £11,000.

It heard how the company has only survived the past two years because of loans made to it by Mr Collins' father, Rod Collins.

The company has run out of assets and owes HMRC almost £50,000.

The court heard the explosion at the Kenn Court Business Park was caused by an assembler testing detonators.

The night sky was lit up for miles around as thousands of rockets ignited in the fire, which started in the warehouse's tool room.

Two neighbouring premises, including a classic car restoration firm where 15 cars were stored, were destroyed by the blast on Friday, October 26, 2006.

The court heard three volunteers were assembling fireworks late into the night for the peak Bonfire Night season when the fire began at about 9.30pm.

One of the men noticed a small flame in the tool room where he had been working with detonators.

Against the industry code of practice they tried to tackle the blaze themselves - emptying six fire extinguishers in vain before calling the emergency services.

All three were hospitalised for the effects of smoke inhalation and despite the best efforts of firefighters the building was totally devastated.

One, Collins' former business partner Peter Taschimowitz, was said to have suffered long-term psychological harm due to the incident.

David Morgan, prosecuting, told the sentencing hearing there were a number of serious safety breaches committed in the run-up to the fire.

He said the men preparing the fireworks were 'fusing' fireworks before the explosion, a procedure that maximises their explosive effect.

He said: "Fusing is an extremely hazardous operation."

He told the court regulations were in place to ensure it wasn't carried out anywhere near stored fireworks or any possible source of a spark.

Once fireworks were prepared for displays he said they should have been removed to three secure shipping containers on the site a safe distance from the warehouse.

But witnesses, including two police staff fitting CCTV on the day of the fire because of previous break-ins, reported up to 30 boxes of fireworks sitting on the floor of the warehouse.

They also said a bonfire was alight during the day within 20 metres of the open doors of the warehouse where firework preparations were carried out - a claim denied by Mr Collins.

Mr Morgan criticised the company's training regime, describing it as being done on an 'ad-hoc basis'.

He also stated the company had at least double the amount of fireworks it was licensed to store on the site at the time of the explosion.

Alan Fuller, defending, denied there were as many as 30 boxes lying around awaiting distribution, but admitted it could have been about 13.

He said Mr Collins was genuinely remorseful, particularly the damage done to his neighbours.

He said: "Contrary to the impression given by the Crown this is not a cowboy operation."

He added most of the safety and training documentation the council described as inadequate was destroyed in the fire.

While the company admitted to overstocking fireworks it denied it was to the extent the prosecution alleged.

Mr Fuller said the company had been misled by the Chinese firm it imported fireworks from as to their explosive content, taking it over the limits of its licence.

He also said Mr Collins had been involved in the fireworks industry since he was 19 and had an impeccable safety record at thousands of displays.

He said: "This was a well-established operation which put on hundreds of displays each year across the West Country.

"It had an awful lot of repeat business from top corporate venues.

"It appears that, on the basis of what we have heard, the fire resulted from inappropriate actions when Mr Collins wasn't in attendance.

"It was something he wouldn't have dreamed of allowing or expected a trusted person to do."

Speaking after the case, Mandy Bishop, North Somerset's group manager of environmental and consumer services, said: "We are pleased the judge recognised that those who deal with explosives have a huge burden of responsibility to bear.

"Public safety has to be paramount."

Jun 15, Clevedon fireworks blaze director disqualified for five years, This is Somerset

Jun 18, Fireworks din sparks shower, Andover Advertiser

An investigation is under way after neighbours complained of late night noise from a student ball at the Broadlands Estate.

Test Valley Borough Council received a flurry of phone calls after the mid-week University of Southampton end-of-year extravaganza.

A number of residents said they were kept awake by a fireworks display while loud music continued in to the small hours.

Managers at Broadlands say they acted within their licensing conditions and have vowed to look at ways of notifying residents about future late night events.

One resident, Teresa Cardy, from Priestlands, told the Romsey Advertiser: “How inconsiderate of them to have a firework display this late, especially in the middle of the week.

“I know people who live in Viney Avenue that were disturbed by them so think of the poor elderly people who live in St Annes flats or Edwina Mountbatten House on Broadwater Road, which is very close to Broadlands.

“If I decided to let off fireworks in my garden at that time of night I am sure my neighbours and the police would have something to say about it.

“It’s a disgrace and I know a lot of other people feel the same way as I do.”

Test Valley Borough Council’s pollution team has vowed to investigate the complaints after Romsey town councillor Mark Cooper also expressed his concerns.

Broadlands director of estates, Richard Jordan-Baker, said he was on site during the privately held event last Wednesday to ensure fireworks did not go beyond 11pm – the legal cut-off time for displays - and that music stopped at 2am.

He added that discussions had taken place with council bosses and that a scheme was being examined to announce plans for firework displays on town websites.

“Certainly it was never our intention to upset anybody,” he said.

“We always work very hard and do always remain within the law.

“It is very unusual for us to do a midweek event and it is by no means our intention to repeat this regularly.

“People may think it was an uncontrollable rave, but it was a highly organised event that went off very smoothly.”

Jun 18, Fireworks din sparks shower, Andover Advertiser

Jun 21, Don't get too big of a blast from July 4 fun, Hometown Life

A 25-year-old man has been arrested after a large amount of fireworks were found at a flat in Birmingham.

Homes in part of Erdington were evacuated twice - on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday morning - while a bomb disposal team was brought in.

Residents were moved to a sports hall in nearby Edmund Campion School on Tuesday night but they were allowed to return home after an hour on Wednesday.

A 25-year-old man was arrested under the Firearms Act.

Homes around the flat in Swan Gardens and in neighbouring Machin Road were evacuated and main roads and part of a nearby railway line were shut for three hours on Tuesday evening, police said.

Jun 21, Don't get too big of a blast from July 4 fun, Hometown Life

Jun 25, Firework blows up car belonging to Liverpool family-of-five, Liverpool Echo

A family’s car was blown up today by an industrial firework.

The family of five were woken at around 12.40am by a massive bang which rocked the small Avon Close cul-de-sac, in Kirkdale.

The explosive was thrown under their Vauxhall Safira, which was parked on the drive outside the house.

The force of the blast sent the bumper flying across the road and ripped off the front of the car.

Firefighters were on the scene within minutes and managed to contain the blaze, stopping it from spreading to the house, where a couple live with their three young sons.

It is thought whoever threw the firework escaped down an alley running next to the house. The scene was taped off today.

Today, one neighbour said: “This is normally a quiet place to live.

“We heard a massive bang and jumped out of bed to look out of the window, but we did not see anyone.

“The family are so lovely.”

Jun 25, Firework blows up car belonging to Liverpool family-of-five, Liverpool Echo

June 30, Are fireworks bad for the environment? Mother Nature Network

Fourth of July fireworks unleash a shower of toxins into the soil and water, and scientists are only beginning to figure out what that means for human health.

The rockets' red glare on the Fourth of July can fill onlookers with patriotism and awe. Unfortunately, it can also fill them with particulates and strontium.

Fireworks get their flamboyance from a variety of chemicals, many of which are toxic to humans. From the gunpowder that fuels them to the metallic compounds that color their explosions, fireworks often contain radioactive, carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting substances that seep into soil and water, potentially threatening animals throughout the food chain.

But fireworks shows are woven into the fabric of the United States — they were popular here even before the country won its independence — and it's not like they happen every day. Is an occasional peppering of perchlorates in the Potomac really a big deal compared with all the industrial pollution it and other U.S. waterways have been dealt over the years?

Maybe not, but it's still not entirely clear how fireworks affect ecological health. While they haven't been directly linked to any widespread outbreaks of disease, it's not always easy to pin down why someone developed hypothyroidism, anemia or cancer.

What we do know is that, although they're fleeting and infrequent, fireworks shows spray out a toxic concoction that rains down quietly into lakes, rivers and bays throughout the country. Many of the chemicals in fireworks are also persistent in the environment, meaning they just stubbornly sit there instead of breaking down. That's how mercury from coal emissions winds up in fish, and it's how DDT thinned bald eagles' eggshells in the '70s. There's scant evidence that fireworks are having similar effects, but the possibility has been enough to raise concern in many communities.

Here's a look at what's in fireworks, how they might affect people and wildlife, and what kinds of alternatives exist:

Perchlorates and particulates

For fireworks and other pyrotechnics to blow up, they need to blow up something — usually a blend of charcoal and sulfur fuel. They also need an ingredient that can inject oxygen to speed up the explosion, historically relying on potassium nitrate. These three chemicals are mixed together into a sooty substance known as gunpowder.

When a spark hits gunpowder, the potassium nitrate feeds oxygen to the fire, helping it quickly burn the charcoal-sulfur fuel. This produces volumes of hot, rapidly expanding solids and gases that can be used to fire a bullet, explode an artillery shell or launch a Roman candle.

The original blends of black powder can be a bit too unstable and messy for some uses, though, so the potassium nitrate is often replaced by perchlorates, a family of chemicals all featuring a central chlorine atom bonded by four oxygen atoms. Two types in particular — potassium perchlorate and ammonium perchlorate — have become the go-to oxidizers of the pyrotechnics industry.

Perchlorates may have introduced a new problem, though: In high enough doses, they limit the human thyroid gland's ability to take iodine from the bloodstream, potentially resulting in hypothyroidism. The thyroid needs iodine to make hormones that control a variety of body functions, and people running too low on these hormones can develop a wide range of disorders. Children, infants and especially fetuses suffer the worst from hypothyroidism, since thyroid hormones are crucial for normal growth. Perchlorates have also been shown to cause thyroid cancer in rats and mice, but scientists believe humans are less vulnerable to this effect.

Low doses of perchlorates don't seem to hurt healthy adults — volunteers who took 35 milligrams for 14 days or 3 milligrams for six months showed no thyroid-related problems, and studies of workers exposed to similar amounts for years also failed to uncover any major side effects. Plus, perchlorate advocates often point out that it should theoretically all be incinerated in the sky before any can fall down to contaminate the ground.

But a 2007 study of an Oklahoma lake following fireworks displays overhead found that perchlorate levels spiked more than 1,000 times above the baseline level for 14 hours after a show. While the maximum concentration detected was 44.2 micrograms — less than 1 milligram — per liter, the study was still the most concrete evidence yet that fireworks release perchlorates into waterways.

Another study by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection found perchlorate levels up to 62 micrograms per liter at eight groundwater-monitoring wells on the Dartmouth campus, near where fireworks are regularly fired.

EPA spokesman Skip Anderson cautions that these weren't health-effects studies, and points out that more data is needed to determine how great a risk perchlorates pose in surface water around the country. Still, he says, their results "suggest that some perchlorate in fireworks is not combusted and therefore can wind up in the environment."

The smoke from fireworks' burned charcoal and sulfur fuel also contains particulate matter that can get lodged in people's lungs, an immediate danger for those with asthma or chemical sensitivities. Prolonged exposure to similar airborne particles from diesel exhaust has also been shown to cause lung cancer. Air-quality monitors reportedly spike for about three hours after a fireworks show.

One positive of both perchlorates and particulates is that they most likely don't pose a long-term threat. Particulates fade away after a few hours, and perchlorates dissipate days or weeks after being released. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about some other chemicals that help light up the sky.

Metallic compounds

In addition to gunpowder, fireworks are packed with heavy metals and other toxins that produce their sparkling shower of colors. Like perchlorates, the exact effect of fireworks' heavy-metal fallout is still mainly a mystery, but scientists do know that the metals themselves can wreak havoc in the human body.

• Strontium (red): This soft, silvery-yellow metal turns red when it burns, is extremely reactive with both air and water, and can be radioactive. Some strontium compounds dissolve in water, and others move deep into soil and groundwater; radioactive strontium has a half-life of 29 years. While low levels of stable and radioactive strontium haven't been shown to affect human health, they both can be dangerous at high doses. Radioactive strontium can damage bone marrow, cause anemia and prevent blood from clotting correctly, and lab studies have shown it can lead to birth defects in animals. Stable strontium is mainly a threat to children because it can impair their bone growth. 

• Aluminum (white): Since aluminum is the most abundant metal in Earth's crust — and one of humanity's most widely used — avoiding exposure is almost impossible. Virtually all food, water, air and soil contain some amount of aluminum — the average adult eats about 7 to 9 milligrams of the silvery-white metal every day in food. It's generally safe at these levels, but it can affect the brain and lungs at higher concentrations. People and animals exposed to large amounts of aluminum have performed poorly on mental and physical tests, and some studies suggest aluminum exposure may lead to Alzheimer's disease, although that connection has yet to be proven.

• Copper (blue): Fireworks' blue hues are produced by copper compounds. These aren't very toxic on their own, but the copper jump-starts the formation of dioxins when perchlorates in the fireworks burn. Dioxins are vicious chemicals that don't occur naturally and aren't intentionally produced anywhere; they only exist as unwelcome byproducts of certain chemical reactions, one of which happens in blue fireworks. The most noted health effect of dioxin exposure is chloracne, a severe skin disease with acne-like lesions mostly on the face and upper body. Dioxin doesn't stop there, though — the World Health Organization has identified it as a human carcinogen, and it's also been shown to disrupt hormone production and glucose metabolism.

• Barium (green): Fish and other aquatic organisms can accumulate barium, which means it can move up the food chain. The silvery-white metal naturally bonds with other elements to form a variety of compounds that all have different effects — none are known to be carcinogenic, but they can cause gastrointestinal problems and muscular weakness when exposure exceeds EPA drinking water standards. Symptoms may include vomiting, diarrhea, breathing trouble, changes in blood pressure, numbness around the face, general muscle weakness and cramps. High levels of barium exposure can lead to changes in heart rhythm, paralysis or death.

• Rubidium (purple): This soft, silvery metal is one of the most abundant elements on Earth. It burns purple, melts to a liquid at 104 degrees Fahrenheit and is highly reactive with water, capable of igniting fires even far below the freezing point. It hasn't been reported to cause any major environmental damage, but it can cause skin irritation since it's so reactive with moisture, and it's moderately toxic when ingested, reportedly able to replace calcium in bones (PDF).

• Cadmium (various): Used to produce a wide range of fireworks colors, this mineral is also a known human carcinogen. Breathing high levels of cadmium can seriously damage the lungs, and consuming it can fluster the stomach, often resulting in vomiting and diarrhea. Long-term exposure can lead to kidney disease, lung damage and fragile bones. Plants, fish and other animals take up cadmium from the environment, meaning that any released into waterways from a fireworks show can be passed up the food chain.

Alternative fireworks

The most eco-friendly alternative to fireworks is to forgo explosions altogether — go to a parade, go fishing, grill out, camp out or help out.

If you must see the sky festively illuminated, you might want to try a laser light show, which create dazzling displays of color without launching dangerous chemicals into the air. They may consume lots of energy, but so does the rampant production of single-use fireworks. Here's an example of lasers in lieu of fireworks on the Fourth of July, from Stone Mountain, Ga., in 2008:

In 2004, Disney began using compressed air to launch fireworks at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., reducing at least the issues of smoky particulates in the air and perchlorates in the water. Researchers have also been fine-tuning alternative propellants that use nitrogen-rich materials in place of perchlorates, but those are still likely several years away from hitting the market. 

June 30, Are fireworks bad for the environment?, Mother Nature Network

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