Mumbai: The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has started tests to check the decibel levels of various firecrackers available in the market. The report will be sent to respective municipal corporations, the officials said.
The pollution control board on Wednesday carried out test for more than 25 firecrackers available in Thane market including single bombs, sparklers and lari. “While most of the firecrackers were within the permissible noise limit of 125dB, few of them were emitting large amount of smoke and fumes. We will not be allowing them in the market. We are presently making a list of all those firecrackers which will be submitted to the Thane Municipal Corporation,” said an official from the MPCB.
Firecrackers in Mumbai market were also tested by the MPCB last week, where the highest sound level this year was from serial crackers of 5,000 series and measured 113dB (A).
“Awaaz Foundation conducted tests on chemical content of firecrackers in 2012, 2013 and 2015. All the results show that firecrackers contain harmful heavy metals, which are released in the air when they are burst. Air pollution from firecrackers not only inc-reases smoke and RSPM but contains dangerous and poisonous heavy metals including lead and mercury,” said Su-maira Abdulali, founder of Awaaz Foundation.
This year, it was also revealed that some of the boxes of the firecrackers do not give complete information about the chemical content of the crackers either, while most of them did not have the noise limits labelled on them.
