An environmental health group on Wednesday made a list of non-hazardous noisemakers as the country welcomes the New Year’s Eve with a celebration.
With the much anticipated goodbye to 2020 nearing, the EcoWaste Coalition urged the general public to welcome the New Year in a safe and eco-friendly manner to prevent firecracker-related injuries and deaths, fires, pollution and acoustic torture against animals.
The local government and police authorities are also working double time to control, if not ban, the use of firecrackers and fireworks to prevent injuries and COVID-19 transmission during the New Year‘s Eve revelry.
“Let us end this year of unparalleled challenges and difficulties due to destructive calamities and the COVID-19 pandemic not with the usual mayhem and pollution that can only exacerbate our health and environmental problems,” said Thony Dizon, EcoWaste Coalition chemical safety campaigner.
“For a change, let us celebrate the New Year in a way that will not injure or kill others, trigger fires, generate toxic emissions and wastes, and torture our cats and dogs with painful noise,” he added.
Instead of the usual firecrackers and fireworks, the group called on the public to make use of substitute noisemakers for merrymaking on New Year’s Eve.
Dizon noted that safety alternatives can help one save funds that can be used “to alleviate the suffering of neighbors, relatives, friends and even strangers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the string of disasters that disrupted and ruined our people’s lives.
Among the good alternatives to firecrackers and fireworks are the following:
- Shake maracas fashioned out of empty cans.
- Bang pot lids and pan covers as improvised cymbals
- Rattle the tambourine made from flattened bottle crowns.
- Tap big water bottles, biscuit cans or buckets like drums
- Shake your piggy bank or create your own “shakers” from paper boxes or plastic bottles with coins, pebbles or seeds.
- Beat the batyaor palanggana(washbasin) with a ladle or stick.
- Honk bicycle or car horns.
- Ring the alarm clocks or play ringtones altogether.
- Switch on the radio or play your favorite music or musical instruments.
- Clap your hands and stomp your feet.
“Alternatively, you can also do away with noisemakers and opt to welcome the New Year in the quiet but joyful company of the people you care for,” Dizon said.
To prevent harm to public health and the environment, the EcoWaste Coalition further urged New Year‘s Eve revelers not to release balloons, light sky lanterns and burn garbage and used tires.
The group also reminded the public to observe the basic health protocols such as the hand-washing, physical distancing and avoiding “talsik-laway” during the merrymaking. —Rosette Adel
