On Friday of this week, we shall have the third reading of Bill Tynan's Firework Bill. The Bill has cleared it's Committee stage and now comes back to the House of Commons. One of the debating points will be, just how loud should we allow fireworks to be?

The RSPCA, in their recent report, are recommending 95 db(A)I. This they suggest would be the right balance between the anxiety fireworks cause to animals, both domestic and wild, and the entertainment they provide to a select few.

The new European Standard on Fireworks, which will come into force over the next few years, are saying 120 dB(A)I should be the maximum. Our own Firework Industry has agreed to 'Limit supply of noisy fireworks (113-120 Decibels) to larger higher cost products/packs;' So they will still be noisy fireworks out there.

On the face of it, the two sides are not far apart, 95 as against 113, until you understand all of the equation.
A decibel is a logarithmic unit, so if you double the noise sources, the decibels will only go up by 3 decibels, and doubling it again only pushes it up another 3 decibels. To make it easier to understand let us say 'BANG' equals 95 dB(A)I, then 'BANG BANG' equals 98 dB(A)I, and 'BANG BANG BANG BANG' will equal 101 dB(A)I. If you carry on until you reach 119 dB(A)I you will have a staggering 256 'BANGS'. Yes, fireworks can be 256 times louder than the RSPCA say your pet should suffer.

On the normal types of firework it will be just less than 64 times as loud. Rockets, however, can be as loud as they like, as no upper level has been agreed, so we are at the mercy of the Firework Industry.

We know just how important how our hearing is, so why should we put at risk the hearing of ourselves and that of our children, just to satisfy the financial cravings of the Firework Industry.

The Firework Bill, although a Private Members Bill, has received Government backing and is proceeding through Parliament. Doubts have been raised that any new laws will be passed before this years Guy Fawkes Night.