THERE’S one very sensible and practical reason to ditch firecrackers.
The money saved for not buying and bursting firecrackers and fireworks can be used instead to pay for food, medicines, bills, clothes, school needs, and other essentials. Makes sense, right?
Here are the other equally valid reasons. Firecrackers and fireworks can cause physical injuries requiring emergency medical treatment. They also generate toxic smoke filled with particulates, heavy metals and other chemicals of concern resulting in poor air quality and visibility and causing public health and safety hazards.
Firecrackers and fireworks leave toxic-laced residual garbage in streets that ends up in waterways, dumps and landfills. They also produce deafening noise that is torture for animals with acute sense of hearing like cats and dogs.
Too, firecrackers and fireworks can start accidental fires, which can destroy homes and take lives.
But the Department of Health campaigning for this by its lonesome won’t be effective to persuade people to do away with firecrackers. It certainly needs help.
The country’s over 42,000 barangays can be of great assistance in this regard. They can mount proactive actions that will protect their constituents and the ecosystems from harms caused by the lighting of firecrackers and fireworks, especially on New Year’s Eve.
Yes, barangay authorities should take the lead in promoting an injury-free, fire-free, garbage-free and toxics-free way of heralding 2023. The should encourage the public to opt for safer ways of welcoming the New Year sans injuries, fires, waste and chemical pollutants.
The non-use of firecrackers and fireworks during the New Year revelry will protect the people’s constitutionally-guaranteed rights to health and to healthful environment, as well as help in upholding important environmental, health and animal protection laws such as the Clean Air Act, Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Water Act, Climate Change Act, and the Animal Welfare Act.
As frontliners in the promotion of public welfare, the proactive action by our barangay officials will be crucial in influencing families and neighborhoods to switch to a pro-health and pro-environment way of ushering in the New Year.
