Green Crackers or Green Trap? Delhi's Toxic Diwali Dilemma Before Supreme Court

India Today

This special report examines the debate around the potential allowance of green firecrackers in Delhi for Diwali by the Supreme Court, featuring insights from environmentalist Vimlendu Jha and Bhavreen Kandhari of Warrior Moms. Vimlendu Jha strongly questioned the proposal, asking, 'When your city is in ICU, do you actually treat your city with more toxins, 30% less or 40% less? How does it even matter?'. The discussion covers the nature of green crackers, which are designed by CSIR-NEERI to reduce particulate matter pollution by about 30-35%. However, experts argue that in a city with dangerously high baseline pollution, even 'less harmful' is not harmless, as these crackers still release ultra-fine particles. The report also highlights the significant challenges of enforcing regulations and preventing the sale of counterfeit crackers, which could negate any potential environmental gains and worsen the public health crisis.

Transcript

00:00So after years of bans, the Supreme Court seems to have opened up the doors just slightly for

00:05firecrackers in Delhi this Diwali. But not just any firecrackers. The court could potentially

00:10allow green crackers under tight restrictions. So what are green crackers and can they really

00:17help clean up Delhi's toxic air? So we thought we'll tell you a little bit about them. Here's

00:22our explainer. Now green crackers are redesigned firecrackers that emit fewer pollutants than

00:28traditional ones. They contain reduced amounts of harmful chemicals like barium, aluminum and also

00:34include additives that suppress dust and smoke. Scientists from NEERI for example claim that these

00:40crackers can reduce particulate pollution by about 30 to 35 percent. While they are considered safer,

00:46experts also caution that they still release ultra fine particles and sort of gases meaning they are

00:52less harmful not harmless. That's the bottom line here. Let's also now look at how are these green

00:58crackers different from your conventional firecrackers. You've got a couple of comparisons over there.

01:03Number one on chemical composition. Now conventional firecrackers contain higher levels of harmful

01:08metals. I already pointed them out. It's barium, it's potassium, it's nitrate, aluminum, all of them.

01:13Green crackers on the other hand use reduced amounts of these metals but so a reduced amount of

01:20aluminum content maybe. But when it comes to pollution, let's look at the next one. How exactly do

01:25they fare? Conventional crackers release a lot of particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide,

01:31heavy metals. Green crackers cut the particulate matter emissions claimed to be by 30 to 35 percent

01:37producing much less smoke. But let's get into the dust and smoke a little bit then. Regular crackers have

01:44no additives to reduce these but green crackers claim to include special additives to suppress dust

01:51and make the smoke less visible. What about noise? Well, noise levels are also a big difference.

01:58Conventional crackers can get very loud. Obviously, you know, we all know it, often exceeding safe limits

02:04as well. While green crackers are designed to produce lower noise and reduce noise pollution as well.

02:10But burst duration and intensity, that's the critical one. Traditional crackers have longer,

02:15more intense bursts and heavy sparks whereas green crackers often have shorter bursts and controlled

02:21flame intensity. Another point there is that conventional crackers contain materials that

02:26produce heavy ash when burned. Green crackers eliminate these ash producing ingredients resulting

02:33in less litter as well. Finally, certification. Conventional crackers don't require any environmental

02:39certification. Green crackers are certified by bodies like NEERI, by PESCO and to meet sort of pollution

02:48control standards. They claim to be meeting them. But of course, there are a lot of fakes out in the market as

02:53well. To top it off, green crackers include dust suppressants to further reduce particulate matter.

02:58So what's the catch here then? Well, the catch is that scale matters. Even if each cracker

03:05amidst less pollution, widespread use could still overwhelm the system, erasing the environmental

03:12gains altogether. Delhi's background pollution, remember, the level basic pollution, even as we

03:18speak today, is already quite bad. Delhi fails during this time of the year when weather patterns trap

03:25sort of pollutants close to the ground and all of us are already in the poor category if you don't know

03:29it already. Enforcement is a key risk as well. Without strict checks, non-certified or fake

03:35green crackers could easily enter the market. So what's the bottom line? Green crackers may offer

03:41a compromise celebration only if it is implemented with caution. But whether they bring joy or just

03:49more smog will really depend on how well the rules are followed and how strictly they are enforced.

03:56Because remember, Delhi is really holding its breath quite literally on this one. Let's bring our experts

04:04now to talk about whether or not green crackers work and what to expect as well in the coming days.

04:09One of the most important things is Vimlendu Jha, environmentalist and CEO of Green The Map, and

04:13Bhavreen Khandari, member of Warrior Moms. Warrior Moms is actually now petitioning in the Supreme Court

04:18as well, asking for not to allow green crackers altogether. But Vimlendu, can I get a big picture?

04:24I just laid out the difference between the two. The key really is how many of them are being

04:29are being burst? And importantly, who's actually looking at the labeling of the green crackers? Are

04:35they really as green as they claim to be? Like we said, only 35% less. Can Delhi survive on those

04:42green crackers if all of them were supposed to go green? No, I think the first thing that we need to

04:47understand is that what's the baseline? And therefore, as you know, when we talk about

04:52firecrackers, firecrackers in Washington DC, green or non-green is very, very different from firecrackers

04:58in Greenland. Or for that matter, therefore, firecrackers in Delhi NCR, whose baseline is

05:04already really, really pathetic when it comes to air quality, right? As we're talking about today's

05:09air quality, when we haven't had the stubble burn, the smoke come in as yet, the winter hasn't really

05:16arrived, and still it's moderate to poor. And these are the government monitors that we're talking

05:21about. And imagine what is going to happen after 10 days, when we will have so-called green firecrackers,

05:26which by the admission of the government itself is only less polluting by 30%. And the other way

05:32around to look at it is that it still pollutes 70%. And imagine on any given day, these firecrackers in

05:39all the last five Diwali's, so to say, if you look at the WHO report, it says that the air quality index

05:45of the PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels on the night of Diwali, it reaches 20 to 30 times worse

05:51than the permissible limits. Most of the ICUs run out of a hospital bed, children and elderly are admitted

05:58in the hospital. And then we still think that our right to faith or right to religion is more

06:04important than Article 21, which is right to liberty, life, clean environment, and so on and so forth.

06:10As in, you know, year after year, we have been talking about it and without, with really abandoning

06:15our scientific acumen, with regarding our regard for, forget the environment for a second,

06:22and we're not even talking about being green warriors or environmentalists and concerned about

06:27the romance of our clean air. It's just a matter of public health. When your city is in ICU,

06:34do you actually treat your city with more toxins? 30% less or 40% less? How does it even matter?

06:42And I feel so outraged and, you know, disgusted by the fact that this entire movement for clean air,

06:50by the way, say no to firecrackers movement has been going on for many, many, many decades in that sense.

06:56One. Two, it has taken a lot of advocacy and work for advocacy in terms of talking to people in power,

07:04including people in the government or the Supreme Court for that matter, and also a lot of effort

07:08that's gone on the ground to educate the citizenry. And suddenly we've seen the Supreme Court in its own

07:14wildest imagination, trying to monkey balance this entire deal by saying, oh, well, it's okay to

07:20blast firecrackers for four to five hours. As in, what is the Supreme Court even thinking?

07:25To be fair, Mr. Jah, the Supreme Court hasn't passed an order just yet. It was one of the observations

07:35that had said, and they haven't done it. The Delhi government actually approached the Supreme Court

07:40to say that you should allow green crackers. And therefore we are, I'm just forewarning the judges,

07:45if they're watching this program, or listening to the lungs of our children, that's fine. But they had

07:52the courage or miscarriage of justice to make those observations, to even think that let's look at four

08:00to five hours, and to fall for this trap called green firecrackers, where there's something called,

08:05it's the most oxymoronish term that we've ever heard called green firecrackers. And by the way,

08:11we're not even talking about child labor. We're not even talking about the business lobby involved.

08:16As we all know, there are at least 100 reports that you'll read of who makes these firecrackers.

08:22And we talk about Ramji and all our gods. Do you think gods would like our children to live 10 years

08:29less because they want these toxic barium, aluminum, sodium, lead firecrackers to be blasted for

08:36somebody's glory? You want your child? I know you have a child. I have a four and a half year old

08:41child. Do I want my child to have asthma? Because Ramji will be very, very happy, you know? And by the

08:47way, firecracker ban was not only for Diwali. Firecracker ban was for Bakri, is for year round. And

08:55therefore it is not anti-Hindu. It is for liberty to live and our children's right to breathe clean air.

09:02And I'm not saying that Diwali is the only reason why our children and our elderly or you and I are

09:07not breathing clean air. There's a miscarriage of governance. There's a fractured understanding of

09:12air pollution and very little so less and so delayed and so pathetically governed excuses that

09:20we've seen when it comes to air quality governance. So Delhi anyway is so polluted. Delhi's air last so

09:26months. As in today's headline was that, oh, well, since June 21,

09:33and I was on a show a couple of days ago when BJP government said, oh, well, look at our performance.

09:40No, it's weather gods that's made the rain, the extended rain that we had. So, you know,

09:46Amadi Party, be it or BJP that is in power and not just about Delhi. We're talking about the airshed,

09:52we're talking about North India, we're talking about sort of, you know, you know, sati was a part of our system.

09:59I totally understand your sentiment. And that's why I've not interrupted you even for a minute

10:05when you said all these things. You want to say one more thing? Sir, I want to give Bhavreen also

10:12one point. I'll come back to you, sir. Just bear with me. I've heard you out at length. I was just

10:17looking at the pollution meter while he was speaking. He's actually absolutely right. We are 264 already.

10:23So we are already in the poor category as of now. Bhavreen, the argument really is, is that, you know,

10:30the kids don't even get to understand what firecrackers is all about. The argument is of experience

10:36versus health. How are you going to justify that in court? Yes, I guess, Sonal, we're all parents here.

10:44How does it feel when, you know, you, you are a mother is actually walking up and down with a

10:49wheezing child all night or rushing a child or, you know, elderly, you know, person in the house

10:56to the hospital? These are repeated. I mean, our feeds in our social media are full of such examples

11:04where, you know, people are desperate. They've said something, you know, actually between you and

11:09Vimlindo, you've really said everything and very articulately that there's really nothing to add in

11:16technical terms. This is the article 21 of the constitution and the Supreme Court themselves

11:22have always repeatedly held the right to clean air as a part of the right to life.

11:26Now, allowing a green crackers like Vimlindo just, you know, elaborated that when you,

11:33would you, would you go back to your house and ask that, you know, someone that you fed the child

11:37and somebody says, no, yeah, we did today. We gave less poison. How would you react?

11:41Now, it's as simple as that. Are you willing to take less poison for a child? And it's about

11:47every emission. We are not, none of us here are speaking only about crackers. We are working,

11:54probably, we have dedicated our lives to every source of emission that we are working. The trolls

11:59can come and do and say anything they want. But, you know, our past records show that. So it's about

12:06every, when, when it's green crackers, you're still, there's PM, there is toxic metals, there's gases.

12:13The Supreme Court in, you know, the Arjun Gopal versus Union of India, when it was,

12:17came in 2015 and then 2018, they, when they permitted green crackers, they clearly

12:24said it's, it will be taken up only if it's enforceable. And the court also said that if it's

12:29the enforcement failed, the ban would revert. And which happened, you know, subsequently.

12:33But the enforcement on complete ban is also not applicable. No, year after year,

12:37we see no firecrackers all day around, but we still hear them. On Karwa Chaut, we heard it,

12:42every time there's a match, there's IPL, every time we hear it. So clearly enforcement is out of

12:47our hands. So clearly to top it up with green crackers, I have to say, I agree with both of

12:52you is clearly not the wise thing to do according to environment, but we'll see how that case actually

12:57pans out. Not very long to go. We barely have days. So we hope that the Supreme Court will be able

13:02to take a strict call on this just before that. Thank you both running out of time. But I promise

13:07we'll come back to this story. We'll come back to this story and we'll keep tracking it

13:10in the days to come, especially after Diwali as well. Thank you both for joining us.

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