Beijing Bans All Firework Use Within the Fifth Ring Road
Chinese New Year celebrations got a whole lot quieter with yesterday's announcement that all firework use will be banned within the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing.
The Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress made the decision official on Friday, further saying firework use outside the Fifth Ring Road will be permitted at certain times and under specific conditions.
The ban has been a long time coming, having been proposed this past August. And yet, Beijing has progressively cracked down on the use of fireworks.
After a 13 year-long city-wide ban was overturned in 2005, Beijing has walked back its open stance on firework use, allowing them only under specific requirements that included a weather report that predicted clean skies.
Fireworks incited public outrage in 2009 when the roof of the iconic CCTV Tower was used to illegally set off fireworks, causing a fire at a next-door hotel that killed one firefighter. Two years later, fireworks were banned from the CBD and from central Beijing.
Even though fireworks are central to Spring Festival celebrations and for ensuring enough luck has been harvested for the oncoming year, Beijingers have shown that they don't want to use them, even if they are allowed.
Firework sales decreased by nearly a third last year as increasing numbers of increasingly-urbanized locals eschew the annual custom, with one 2016 poll measuring public disapproval of fireworks rising almost seven points to 83 percent.
While one possible reason may include city residents leaving behind their cultural traditions, another reason may be due to a higher awareness of Beijing's ongoing air pollution problems.
Last year, a spokesperson for the municipal department of environmental protection said Chinese New Year fireworks are responsible for 2-4 days of severe pollution, resulting in PM2.5 levels that average between 74-118, or, as we've seen, can reach a PM2.5 level of anywhere from 647 to over 1,000 in a short period of time.
As spectacular as they are, fireworks are also blamed for causing fires and human injury. In 2011, Chinese New Year firework celebrations caused 388 casualties and two fatalities in the Beijing area.
That Spring Festival also saw fireworks cause 194 fires, a sensitive local topic after 19 people died in a house fire in Daxing earlier this month, prompting a forced evacuation of residents from areas said to be designated for demolition.
But now with fireworks completely eradicated from urban Beijing, maybe its time to adopt a new custom. And seeing how Chinese New Year is all about making noise, here's something to occupy your eardrums in the absence of real fireworks: fake electronic fireworks. (WARNING: LOUD link, just the way they're supposed to be.)
Images: Yiwufair.com, Qiaobei (qbaobei.com), Jimjw (news.jjmmw.com), Tianshui.com.cn
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