Fireworks and firecrackers, as folk symbols that have been passed down for thousands of years, carry the Chinese people's sense of ritual and emotional sustenance to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Is the introduction and iteration of China's ban on fireworks and firecrackers a simple denial of traditional folk customs, or is it an inevitable choice accompanying China's urbanization process, upgrading of public security governance, and advancement of ecological civilization? From the initial focus on safety control, to environmental protection requirements throughout, and finally becoming the core rigid constraints of policies, this evolutionary path clearly reflects the profound transformation of China's social development philosophy.

1. Origin of the policy: Under the wave of urbanization, the dual demands of safety and environmental protection have sprouted.

Before the reform and opening up, China had long been in a stage where agricultural society was dominated by agriculture and the level of urbanization was low. The population was scattered and high-rise buildings were scarce. The safety risks and environmental impacts of fireworks and firecrackers were within controllable limits. There was no systematic prohibition and control policy at the national level, and only basic safety regulations were implemented for the production and transportation of fireworks and firecrackers. In the 1980s, China entered a period of rapid urbanization. The population rapidly gathered in cities. The area of urban built-up areas continued to expand. High-rise buildings were densely built. The risks of fireworks and firecrackers began to explode. According to public data, during the Spring Festival in 1987, 104 fires were caused by fireworks and firecrackers in Beijing, resulting in 208 injuries, including 25 serious injuries. During the same period in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin and other large cities, fires and personal injury accidents caused by fireworks and firecrackers during the Spring Festival accounted for more than 80% of the total safety accidents during the same period. Public safety has become a management problem that local governments must face directly, which is also the original core motivation for the ban on fireworks. At the same time, the emergence and awakening of environmental demands have laid the institutional foundation for the ban on release of chemicals from the very beginning. In 1989, the Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China was officially promulgated and implemented, establishing environmental protection as a basic national policy, and urban environmental governance was officially included in the legal responsibilities of local governments. At that time, domestic environmental monitoring data had clearly confirmed that the setting off of fireworks and firecrackers would instantly release a large amount of respirable particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and volatile organic compounds, causing a cliff-like decline in urban air quality in a short period of time, and at the same time producing nighttime noise pollution that far exceeded national standards. Guangzhou environmental monitoring data in 1992 showed that during the Spring Festival intensive lighting period, the total suspended particulate matter (TSP) concentration in the urban area exceeded the daily standard by more than five times, and the average regional nighttime noise exceeded 90 decibels, far exceeding the urban nighttime noise limit of 45 decibels. The impact of environmental pollution on public health, especially the health threats to the elderly, children and patients with respiratory diseases, has begun to become an important consideration in local legislation. Environmental protection and safety together constitute the two initial pillars of fireworks and firecracker control policies.

2. Local legislation breaks the ice: the beginning of a comprehensive ban on emissions, and environmental protection is officially included in the legislative purpose

In October 1993, the Sixth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People's Congress of Beijing voted to pass the "Beijing Regulations on Prohibiting the Setting Off of Fireworks and Firecrackers", becoming the first provincial capital city in the country to issue a comprehensive ban on fireworks and firecrackers, marking the official implementation of China's fireworks and firecrackers ban policy. This landmark local regulation clearly places "preventing environmental pollution" before "protecting public safety and citizens' personal and property safety" in the legislative purpose. It clearly establishes the legal status of environmental protection requirements in the ban on release policy, and completely breaks the one-sided perception that "ban on release is only related to safety." Beijing's legislative practice quickly formed a demonstration effect. In the 1990s, more than 280 cities across the country, including Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Nanjing, successively introduced comprehensive bans on fireworks and firecrackers. All local regulations regard "prevention and control of environmental pollution" as the core legislative basis, and together with public safety, become the two legal prerequisites for the ban policy. At this stage, environmental protection requirements have extended from simple terminal pollution control to source control in the production and sales links: regulations have been issued simultaneously in many places to prohibit the production and sale of high-sulfur, high-smoke, and high-noise fireworks and firecrackers products, and preliminary product standards for environmentally friendly fireworks and firecrackers have been proposed, forming the prototype of environmental protection control throughout the "production-sales-display" chain.

3. The return of folk customs and the upgrade of environmental protection: the adjustment of "bans to restrictions", the weight of environmental protection continues to rise

More than ten years after the implementation of the comprehensive prohibition policy, the public voice about "the Spring Festival lacks the flavor of the New Year" has gradually heated up, and the public's demand for the inheritance of traditional folk customs has become increasingly prominent. In 2005, Beijing took the lead in adjusting the ban on fireworks and firecrackers and issued the "Beijing Fireworks and Firecrackers Safety Management Regulations", changing the "comprehensive ban on fireworks" to "limited time and limited area fireworks", clarifying that the area within the Fifth Ring Road can be set off all day long from New Year's Eve to the first day of the first lunar month, and can be set off from 7:00 to 24:00 every day from the second to the 15th of the first lunar month, and is prohibited during the rest of the time. Since then, more than 100 cities across the country have successively completed the adjustment of "restrictions to bans", and the ban and release policy has entered a stage of refined adjustment that balances folk needs and governance requirements. It is worth noting that the "modification of bans and restrictions" is by no means a relaxation of environmental protection requirements. On the contrary, it promotes the upgrading of environmental protection control in a more precise and strict direction. At this stage, the policy did not relax control over highly polluting fireworks and firecrackers, but instead further tightened product environmental standards: the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China has successively issued national standards for "Safety and Quality of Fireworks and Firecrackers", which clearly limits the sulfur content, smoke intensity, and noise values of fireworks and firecrackers, and mandates the promotion of environmentally friendly fireworks with low sulfur, low smoke, and low residue to reduce pollution emissions from the source. More importantly, around 2013, the national smog problem became the focus of society. PM2.5 monitoring was fully rolled out in cities at the prefecture level and above across the country. The impact of fireworks and firecrackers on air quality was scientifically confirmed more accurately and intuitively. Air quality monitoring data from the former Ministry of Environmental Protection over the Spring Festival shows that every year from New Year's Eve to the early morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, major cities across the country will experience explosive growth in PM2.5 concentrations. During the concentrated discharge period, the hourly concentration of PM2.5 in many cities exceeded 1,000 micrograms/cubic meter, far exceeding the national secondary standard limit of 75 micrograms/cubic meter. Fireworks and firecrackers have become the primary source of regional air pollution during the Spring Festival. At this point, environmental protection demands are no longer just principled requirements at the legislative level, but have become a core variable affecting policy adjustments. For the first time, public attention to pollution from fireworks and firecrackers has exceeded safety accidents.

4. Rigid constraints in the new era: environmental protection has become the core pillar of the ban and restriction policy

In 2016, the newly revised "Atmospheric Pollution Prevention and Control Law of the People's Republic of China" was officially implemented. This law for the first time made clear and systematic provisions on the prohibition and restriction of fireworks and firecrackers at the national level: it explicitly prohibited the production, sale and discharge of fireworks and firecrackers that did not meet quality standards, and gave local people's governments at or above the county level the statutory authority to determine the time, place and type of fireworks and firecrackers that are restricted or prohibited based on the needs of air pollution prevention and control. The promulgation of this law provides a solid legal basis for the ban and restriction of fireworks and firecrackers in various places. It also officially integrates the control of fireworks and firecrackers into the overall system of national air pollution prevention and control. Environmental protection requirements have since become an unbreakable rigid constraint on the ban and restriction of fireworks and firecrackers. With the comprehensive advancement of the "Blue Sky Defense War" and the proposal of the "double carbon" goal, China's ecological civilization construction has entered a new stage, and the environmental protection orientation of the policy of banning and restricting fireworks and firecrackers has become increasingly clear. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment will specially deploy fireworks and firecrackers to prevent and control air pollution before the Spring Festival every year, and establish a real-time monitoring and early warning mechanism for air quality during the Spring Festival nationwide; local policies have also continued to upgrade, showing two core trends: First, the scope of prohibited fireworks continues to expand, from the core areas of main urban areas in the past, to the entire city. The entire district is designated as a no-discharge zone to eliminate regional pollution caused by fireworks from the root; second, environmental protection standards are comprehensively tightened. The sale and setting off of traditional high-pollution fireworks and firecrackers are completely prohibited in many places. Only environmentally friendly fireworks with low smoke, low sulfur, and no heavy metals that meet national environmental standards are allowed to be sold and set off. Some cities are simultaneously promoting electronic fireworks and sound and light alternatives to guide the transformation of traditional folk customs into a green and low-carbon direction.

As of 2025, more than 80% of cities at the prefecture level and above across the country have introduced policies banning the release of fireworks and firecrackers in the entire area or in core areas. All policies regard "improving ambient air quality and preventing air pollution" as the primary legislative purpose. Environmental protection requirements have completely grown from an initial auxiliary consideration to a core pillar of the policy on banning and restricting the release of fireworks and firecrackers. Looking back at the evolution of China's fireworks and firecracker ban policy, environmental protection requirements have always run through it and have never been absent. From the establishment of the national policy status in the Environmental Protection Law in 1989, to the inclusion of environmental protection in the legislative purpose of the Beijing No Release Regulations in 1993, to the rigid constraints under the air pollution prevention and control system in the new era, the weight of environmental protection requirements has continued to increase. Behind this is the transformation of Chinese society's development philosophy from "survival" to "ecology," and from "hoping for food and clothing" to "hoping for environmental protection." The essence of the ban and restriction policy has never been to eliminate traditional folk customs, but to promote the adaptive transformation of traditional folk customs in modern society. For thousands of years, the core of the Spring Festival has never been the fireworks themselves, but the warmth of reunion and the expectation of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new. In the context of the construction of ecological civilization, the ultimate value of this policy is to protect green waters and green mountains, protect public health, let the flavor of the year coexist with the blue sky and white clouds, and let traditional folk customs go hand in hand with green development.