Green Crackers: Upcoming Trend in the Country

NEW DELHI: The air quality in many cities of the country is already below healthy limits. And it goes further down after the celebration of the festival of lights. The tons of crackers of various varieties that are burnt during the festival lead to a rapid increase in atmospheric pollutants, and they remain suspended for a very long duration. This leads to an increase in respiratory illnesses across the country. The problem further aggravates as the winter fog gradually sets in. The micro-droplets of water mix with the smoke and cause many more health issues for a longer duration of time

With the health of citizens and the low air quality index during and after Diwali in mind, the Supreme Court of India ordered the production of green crackers in 2018. And the task of making them was given to the CSIR- National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI).

Sadhana Rayalu, the Chief scientist of CSIR NEERI, said that green crackers are much safer alternatives to conventional crackers.

"Technically speaking, green crackers are environmentally benign by design and release comparatively less carbon footprint Green crackers are just like conventional crackers and have oxidizers generally used in conventional crackers. The only differences in the green cracker are the multifunctional additives, which significantly reduce emissions," Sadhana Rayalu mentioned.

The green crackers are made without some ingredients used for conventional crackers, such as aluminum, barium, potassium, nitrate or carbon. And Sivakasi has over 1000 firecracker manufacturers involved with NEERI to produce them on a commercial basis.

"The CSIR NEERI has given some additives for green crackers, but as traders, we know the crackers' life and reliability are less. We can not even assure the consumer as the effect of the chemicals would wade away within three or six months," said V Raja Chandrasekaran, Federation of Tamil Nadu Fireworks Traders' President.

On the matter of shelf life, NEERI's chief scientist Sadhana said, "The onus lies on the manufacturers as to how long they want the shelf life of the firecracker to be, in the sense that if they are using the correct SOP and correct additive in the right way, then the shelf life and stability of the cracker will be very high".

Traders are worried about the shelf life of these green crackers. Effects of the chemicals used in them wade away within 3-6 months and consumers cannot be guaranteed told a trader.

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