All 'green crackers' have toxic heavy metals: Awaaz Foundation

MUMBAI: After Awaaz foundation found only one cracker out of 12 samples of 'green crackers' flouting the noise levels, shockingly it has found almost all of them containing the toxic heavy metals such as mercury, lithium, lead and arsenic.
These metallic elements are considered systemic toxicants that are known to induce multiple organ damage, even at lower levels of exposure.They are also classified as human carcinogens (known or probable) according to the international environmental protection agencies and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. They also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and thus the climate change.
"Foundation also got commonly available ‘green crackers’ tested for heavy metal contents with the help of two independent laboratories. The test results are truly shocking, as both the labs found them to contain dangerous and banned metals viz. mercury, lead and arsenic," foundation's convenor Sumaira Abdulali has revealed in her letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
According to Abduali, independent results show that these green crackers are avowedly violating the orders passed by the Supreme Court of India that firecrackers in any case shall not contain antimony, lithium, mercury, arsenic and lead in whatsoever form. She, however, demanded that since conducting tests from independent private laboratories is expensive for an NGO to sustain, the government should order such tests in the interest of environment, human and animal health.
Recently the mandatory QR Codes which can track emission levels and are published alongside NEERI certification on the packs of green crackers have been found to be fake by the foundation. Also, a number of other citizens attempting to verify them through an app developed by NEERI, the same government agency which has developed chemical formula for ‘green crackers', have found them fake.
"These facts were also placed before the Supreme Court while hearing an application by the petitioner Arjun Gopal on Friday. SC while admitting foundation’s test results on record, has directed an enquiry into fake green crackers and made senior government officers personally responsible for enforcing them," she has revealed further in her letter.
"One of the laboratories has also found other dangerous contents including cadmium, sulphur, strontium and chlorine. All of these are extremely dangerous to health, as they contribute to toxic air pollution," she has pointed out in a letter also addressed to Aaditya Thackeray, the environment minister.
The new WHO guidelines of September 2021 say that such an air pollution could lead to reduced lung growth and function, respiratory infections and aggravated asthma among children. The WHO has also recommended lower air quality levels for six pollutants including sulphur dioxide ahead of the CoP26 Climate negotiations in Scotland and has said that air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, alongside climate change.
"Sulphur and its oxides are a leading cause of acid rain. Firecrackers also emit greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide. State's Mumbai Climate Action Plan has already acknowledged that air pollution levels in Mumbai are dangerously high and that there is an urgent need to control air pollution. We request that the state should ban all fake ‘green crackers’ from distribution, sale and use to safeguard health, environment and climate change," her letter to the CM stated at the end.