The fireworks caused a lot of smog in Dutch cities around New Year’s Eve. The amount of particulate matter in the air was more than 20 percent higher in some places than during the previous New Year’s Eve celebration.
This is evident from preliminary measurement data from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The air quality was very poor in some places for a short time. Lung and heart patients in particular suffer from high particulate matter concentrations. The RIVM therefore had one before New Year’s Eve smog alert issued.
The particulate matter peak was higher than the previous New Year. “In most places, the share of particulate matter was 20 to 30 percent higher than last year,” says RIVM researcher Joost Wesseling. This has several causes. “About 10 percent more fireworks were sold than last year, and there was slightly less wind. That also matters.”
Particulate matter concentrations due to consumer fireworks are mainly a problem in the city. “It blows more easily in the region and in the city you have more people per square meter lighting fireworks,” says Wesseling. “The differences between city and region are quite large.”
For this analysis NRC the data from more than fifty measuring stations in (very) highly urbanized areas, where particulate matter PM2.5 is measured. These are floating particles in the air of a maximum size of 2.5 micrometers. The RIVM analyzed the concentrations of PM10: this particulate matter also contains coarser particles, up to 10 micrometers – a hundredth of a millimeter.
The smaller particles can penetrate deeper into the lungs and are therefore more harmful to health. The concentration of these PM2.5 particles was measured at the Veldhoven-Europalaan measuring station in Eindhoven: 530 micrograms per cubic meter. That is almost three times as much as was found on average in urban areas around this New Year’s Eve. This year, Eindhoven already stood out, says Wesseling. “Usually that city is not in the top 10 of highest measurements, but now it is.” Other outliers were measured at the station on Kardinaal de Jongweg in Utrecht, namely 508 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter.
Stuffed out
“What we feared has come true, namely that a record amount of fireworks have been set off. For many Dutch people with lung disease, this means complaints that can last weeks,” says director Károly Illy of the Lung Fund. The Netherlands has approximately 1.2 million people with a lung condition such as asthma. Nearly two-thirds of them suffer from it fireworksabout 800,000 people.
Illy is annoyed by the “false frame” of fireworks sellers who say that only illegal fireworks are a problem: “As a pediatrician, I know from experience that children are often affected by legal fireworks. People with lung disease suffer just as much from legal fireworks as from illegal fireworks. The complaints sometimes even lead to hospital admissions.”
For example, a few years ago an employee of the Lungfonds ended up “suffocated in hospital due to air pollution from fireworks”, according to writes her on Instagram. Since then, she has spent “most of her time at home in the weeks before New Year’s Eve.” Last year, the Longfonds received several dozen reports about fireworks nuisance around New Year’s Eve.
The smog disappeared fairly quickly this year due to the relatively strong wind. The harder the wind or rain, the faster the concentration of particulate matter in the air decreases. The fact that smog lasts longer one year than another depends more on the weather than on the amount of fireworks that are lit.
Increase in fireworks particulate matter
The fireworks that are set off around New Year’s Eve make a major contribution to the total amount of particulate matter that the Netherlands emits into the air every year. For example, fireworks account for approximately 5 percent of all PM2.5 emissions. In 1990 that share was less than 0.1 percent, so fifty times lower.
This spectacular increase in the fireworks share in particulate matter is partly because the amount of consumer fireworks has increased significantly in recent decades. The emission of particulate matter from fireworks is now more than three times as high as in 1990.
The greater role of fireworks in particulate matter is also because emissions from industry and traffic have decreased sharply. For example, the particulate filter in diesel cars has led to a sharp decrease in PM2.5 particulate matter emissions. The annual particulate matter emissions from road traffic – caused by, among other things, tire wear – are approximately four times as high as those from the New Year’s fireworks.
It is difficult to further reduce particulate matter emissions, to write air quality experts from, among others, the RIVM in the trade journal Air: “The low-hanging fruit has been picked.” Any measure that results in a reduction of at least 0.1 micrograms per cubic meter “is therefore welcome.” A fireworks ban can result in such a reduction on an annual basis, the researchers have calculated, in some places even eight times as much.
The ban on consumer fireworks can also lead to greatly reduced emissions of (heavy) metals. Barium, strontium, antimony, copper and zinc give the decorative fireworks their colours. Barium and strontium are almost exclusively released into the air by fireworks, antimony and copper account for about a quarter.
This New Year’s Eve is the last one where you were allowed to light fireworks. This will be prohibited from next year, the general expectation is that the amount of particulate matter from fireworks will decrease – just like during the pandemic.
Although RIVM researcher Wesseling hastens to say that emissions from fireworks were not zero at the time either. “The fireworks ban was noticeable at the time, but the exact decrease will also depend on the method of regulation and enforcement of the ban.”
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