With reference to the journal article on “The impacts of Chinese Nian culture on air pollution” by Ye et al., (2016), this blog post will analyse and dissect the initiatives to reduce the air pollution released during the Chinese New Year period due to cultural practices and beliefs.

There must first be an understanding of exactly how Nian Culture exacerbates the issue of air pollution in Chinese society. According to Chinese mythology, setting off fireworks was a way in which the people could create loud sounds and fire simultaneously to scare off Nian, the evil monster that emerged on New Year’s Eve (Ye et al., 2014). Furthermore, paper money is also burnt more frequently during the Chinese New Year period, with the belief that the ancestors of the individual would be encouraged to protect them. It was found that during the Chinese New Year period, people burn more than 100,000 tons of paper money, creating a tremendous amount of smog, ash and fire (Tang, 2013).

The journal article by Ye et al., (2016) has suggested several initiatives implemented to curb the emission of air pollution. One example would be that the Hangzhou Municipal government issued a notification to encourage celebrating Chinese New Year with a reduction of fireworks, with many internet users supporting this initiative. Some environmentalists have taken a step further, trampling balloons as an alternative towards lighting fireworks. Though reducing air pollution, the alternative usage of balloons maybe create unintended waste when these balloons are not disposed of properly. When not properly disposed, the remnants of the balloons may end up in the ocean, disrupting the lives of marine and aquatic animals as these animals may get injured or killed as a result of balloon entanglement. In a 2016 article from the journal of Marine Policy, it was found that balloon debris ranks just behind fishing lines and plastic bags, as the greatest risk to marine wildlife (Wilcox et al., 2016). Thus, environmental alternatives to reduce air pollution may have unintended consequences on other aspects of environmental pollution, illustrating the complexity in solving environmental problems while managing societal beliefs.

The problem with this Nian Culture derives from the long-standing beliefs of the Chinese community, whereby these practices and beliefs have been integrated deeply into Chinese society, making it extremely difficult to change (Ye et al., 2016). Definitely, the initiatives are a step in the right direction, but the complexity of the long-standing cultural beliefs and practices in society will continue to remain a giant roadblock towards environmental sustainability.

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During this week, in line with the week of Chinese New Year (CNY) festivities, I will be focusing on how various celebrations and holidays have damaging and pollutive effects on the environment. For this post specifically, I will be focusing on the environmental impacts of Chinese New Year fireworks.

Integral to CNY celebrations, Chinese communities light firecrackers with the believe that the bright lights and sound would drive away evil spirits. For example, the new year festivities in China have led to sharp spikes in air pollution, where the fireworks have released extraordinarily high levels or airborne particulate matter (Lai and Brimblecombe, 2020). The fireworks ban recently introduced ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics by the Beijing government illustrated the marked difference in airborne particles with and without the usage of firecrackers. The average concentrations of these small airborne particles stood at a whopping 289 micrograms per cubic metre during CNY eve before the ban as compared to a mere 5 micrograms per cubic metre after the ban was implemented (CNA, 2022). This illustrates the high intensity of airborne particles released during every CNY celebration while simultaneously also showing how a ban on fireworks is effective in reducing air pollution.

Besides releasing small airborne particles, fireworks have also been found by a study to be a source of ozone, generated through spontaneous bursts in the absence of sunlight and nitrogen oxide (Atrri et al., 2001). Further experiments by the same study has found a linear regression between the total amount of inflammable material present in sparklers and the cumulative O3 formed. This is because the sparklers require a varying combination of metal salts such as sulphur, aluminium nitrate and manganese, which when burnt, produce radiative energy that dissociate the atmospheric molecular oxygen into atomic oxygen, allowing O3 to form (Attri et al., 2001). The tropospheric ozone formed becomes hazardous to people’s health, causing damage in lung tissues, eye irritation and chest congestion (UCAR, 2014).

Despite the negative environmental impacts and negative human health impacts, I believe that fireworks are not an environmental threat that can be eliminated easily due to its significance embedded in CNY traditions and history, to which science and asian cultural beliefs clash. Despite this, the firework ban in Beijing demonstrates a greater awareness by larger institutions of the environmental repercussions of fireworks, bringing us a step closer towards a greener and cleaner earth.

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