Could This Be a More Environmentally Safe Alternative to Fireworks?

Will fireworks soon be a thing of the past?

Transcript

00:00This is a drone show put on by aerial display company Celestial, and while the performances

00:09they put on are spectacular light shows in the sky, much like fireworks are, these are

00:13not just for entertainment.

00:15The company has partnered with environmental organisation Greenpeace to raise awareness

00:19about the problems with fireworks.

00:21This is John Hopkins, co-founder of Celestial and one of the leaders of the project.

00:25So our goal at Celestial is to supersede fireworks, you know.

00:28We love fireworks, but they blow things up, they're single use, they make things catch

00:34on fire and they scare animals.

00:36So what we're trying to do is create something creatively more interesting, green, because

00:43we use renewable energy sources, and we don't scare the animals.

00:47According to sustainability site Treehugger, 4th of July fireworks give off more than 60,000

00:53metric tonnes of CO2 every year, or around what 12,000 cars emit in a year, which is

00:58why more recently some nations have tried to limit how many fireworks are set off during

01:01special events.

01:02Hopkins says they can fly 300 drones at a time, moving them in tandem to create incredible

01:07moving images.

01:08But Hopkins says this is just the beginning, likening current drone displays to rudimentary

01:12computer graphics of days past, and in the future with more drones and more advanced

01:17AI, they'll be able to create even better, higher resolution displays.