Unpopular Opinion: Banning fireworks is stupid and anti-poor
I'm not a big fan of banning fireworks. Anti-poor na naman kasi yan. Not everyone could afford Dragon Fireworks or any of those bombastic pyrotechnic displays. Sure marami naoospital, but 843 out of an estimated 116 Filipinos is barely even 0.007%. Mas madami pa namamatay sa liquor and STDs, I don't think anyone considered banning alcohol or casual sex.
Not to mention that despite the ban, people still get into firecracker accidents and the numbers aren't that far off. May 140 cases na kaagad and it's not even New Year's Eve yet.
Not sure about the situation in the Philippines, but it's also about the pollution, because you're exploding plastic loaded rockets and distribute the plastic all over the place
Good point, but air pollution is not the reason. As long as it's from authorized sellers (read: prohibitively expensive manufacturers), it's all good. Their main reason is that a lot of people get injured — but like I said, several million Filipinos have been doing it annually and only an estimated 800-1000 get injured (some from these high quality firecrackers), those are actually great odds.
I get if they're banning the unnecessarily dangerous and powerful ones (like Goodbye Philippines) but New Year's Eve staples for many decades like five star, pla-pla, judas belt, and right down to something completely safe like watusi is just ridiculous. It's always been part of our culture and what makes our New Year's celebration fun, now it's been relegated to just the rich. $1-2 vs. $75 is insane.
Note: We stopped using fireworks since 2006, so I don't exactly have a horse in this race.
Air pollution and plastic pollution are 2 very different things
Air or plastic pollution, the point remains the same because the ban just restricts fireworks to specific manufacturers — all of which still make firecrackers the same way, and not from ethically-sourced organic gun powder wrapped in water-soluble farm-raised packaging.
Anti-poor? Hahahaha