New Year’s Eve. Silvester and Firework: What I Realised This Year
A new year, a new start, and a new beginning. The last night of the year and the first day of the year is a celebration night for the western community. The traditions differ but everybody is celebrating the evening, mostly with good food, family or friends and lots of alcohol.
Since I started studying CSR, my point of view changed on a lot of things, like waste management, recycling or plastic. Some of them changed to the better, while I started questioning others. So it is for Silvester (as we call New Year’s Eve in Germany). What is it at this night that we have to harm our environment so badly? Because this year, I still celebrated Silvester with my family and friends, good food –and for some with alcohol, but I skipped on the fireworks and to be honest – I did not miss it.
But first of all, let me explain a bit why I consider Silvester’s Fireworks to be a burden for our planet:
The most obvious reason is the waste produced by it. Only this year in Munich we had about 60 tonnes of garbage collected from the streets after New Year’s Eve. At one of our monuments, they started cleaning at 0:30am in order to get the streets ready by 3am. There was a huge amount of waste that is not recyclable, things like magnesium or coal.
Coal is the next reason against firework. If you just imagine the discussions about resources and how they will have an end, it seems ironic to use one of them for private fireworks during one night. And the same goes for paper, carton or wood. There is no fair-trade or environmentally friendly version of fireworks, which also shows how much harm it does.
But not only has the environment suffered because of Silvester’s Fireworks, animals do as well. If you have a dog, a cat or some other animal, you may have observed how they hide inside the house starting midday of the 31/12, and how confused and easily scared they are after this spectacle, not even mentioning the night itself. Well, just imagine how loud we sense the fireworks and now think about the animals which are not only more sensible but for sure do not know what that means.
So, after I introduced the environment and animal types of harm let me come to a point which may be the most shocking for some of you. It does harm us. I took my friend to the bus station at 2am in the morning and we felt like we saw the particulates in the air. According to measurements the exposure to it at Silvester is about 5 times higher than normal. In which respect particulates harm our health and starting from which number is not clear, but experts are sure it does harm us.
And not only indirectly, fireworks cause more dangers. Some get fired into houses, some fall and fire on the street. Firework always involves fire, and this is dangerous. As dangerous, that it is forbidden in the city centre of Munich.
Thinking about all this I felt quite bad about celebrating Silvester this way and for the first time did not use firework or similar things. When the clock turned midnight, my friend and I stayed in and talked late into the night, going to the balcony looking at each other and debating about the environment. My little cousin furthermore was scared as well, which shows that children may like the colour but do not really need the private fireworks. It may even scare them. But the good part is that it seems to get less and the discussion about it seems to get more. The number of wastes in Hamburg and Hannover decreased and even though they cannot say if it is because more people were out of town or because of the shift in mentality, it is relieving to see how it is reducing. Furthermore, since the debate in the press, the politics and on the streets is increasing, it is a possibility to gain hope for a change of traditions. I can speak for myself: I enjoyed New Year’s Eve as much, even without fireworks.
References:
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/dicke-luft-jahreswechsel
Edited by Hiba Arrame