After Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Harsh Vardhan exhorted scientific community to initiate R&D on fireworks to address not only the environmental emissions from fireworks but also protect the economy and livelihood of people.
In January 2018, eight labs of CSIR embarked on this project to develop reduce emission. CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) formulate firecrackers that cause less pollution after the Supreme Court banned sales in 2017.
The green crackers developed by CSIR are low sound-and light-emitting firecrackers and aim to reduce emissions by at least 30% with no extra cost. Also some new formulations based on new oxidizers and additives singly or in combination to achieve PM10 and PM2.5 emissions reduction.
All the green crackers packets carry QR coding. Additionally, you can use your smartphone to track and verify if your green crackers are truly ‘green’. It also forgo the use of any of the chemicals banned by the Supreme Court like lithium, arsenic, lead and mercury according to the specifications issues by the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation.
MoUs and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) have been signed with fireworks manufactures to facilitate hand-holding with stakeholders to enable smooth transition and more than 400 fireworks manufactures have registered so far. This has led to nearly 1000 emissions testing certificates have been issued to fireworks manufactures for new and improved formulations meeting the stipulated guidelines of green crackers for seeking approval of PESO for commercial production.
Tapas Bhattacharya’s report DD News
