Repeated extreme particulate matter episodes due to fireworks in Iceland and stakeholders’ response

Abstract

Abstract Extreme pollution associated with residential firework celebrations is recognized as an important health and environmental issue. Despite this knowledge, consumer fireworks continue to be allowed in many countries around the world. This paper explores the physical and societal factors contributing to extreme recreational firework pollution, as well as stakeholders' perspectives on the resultant pollution and possible mitigation. Metropolitan Reykjavik (217 000 inhabitants) is taken as an example of an affluent, well informed community with a relatively recent history of fireworks displays. Largely non-regulated public access to fireworks has resulted in exceedance of the European air quality standard of PM10 (50 μg/m3), and hazardous hourly concentration (>500 μg/m3) every other year. In the second hour of New Year's Day (NYD) 2018, hourly particulate matter records, 4042 μg/m3 PM10 and 3014 μg/m3 PM2.5, were set in a residential, suburban area. Concentrations of potential toxic metals increased by a factor of 104 (Cu), 96 (Sr), 27 (Ba) during the celebrations compared to the preceding days. The reasons why these high pollution episodes continue to occur, based on stakeholders' interviews, are traced back to a series of societal and regulatory hurdles: (1) Conflicting interests at governmental, municipal and entrepreneurial levels because fireworks are an entertaining spectacle for locals and tourists and a major fundraiser for not-for-profit organizations (NPOs), and yet pose an unacceptable public burden in terms of air pollution. (2) The lawful public access to fireworks severely limits stakeholder involvement and air quality mitigation actions. (3) Implementation of fireworks policy is dispersed among multiple stakeholders. These factors promote stakeholder passiveness towards pollution mitigation: Continuing public awareness campaigns with the goal of slowly weaning the public off fireworks were favored over restricting public use to fireworks. Future opportunities lie in holistic policy making, using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a roadmap; and in clarifying the risk of extreme particulate matter episodes in the relevant regulations, e.g. by accounting for the level of exceedances (concentration value divided by ambient air quality standard), and the nature of the particles (size, morphology, chemical composition).