Green crackers: Mktg gimmick or failed awareness drive in Lko?

It has been several years since green firecrackers have been promoted in the market. These crackers should have a QR code with details of the components and the manufacture along with a logo of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI).
However, during a reality check in the makeshift cracker markets in the city, Hindustan Times found that many firecrackers did not have a QR code or CSIR-NEERI logo while some had a QR code which had details of the manufacture but had no trace of the ingredients used in the manufacturing process.
Some firecrackers even had a QR code which did not lead to any website. There was also confusion related to what can be called a green cracker among sellers.
Some opined that crackers like fire-cracker guns are green as they neither produce high decibel sound, nor do they emit light while others believed that rockets and other such can be considered green crackers as they burst in the sky and do not emit smoke on the ground. There were also a few who said that crackers which emit green light are green crackers.
With the crackers labelled as green crackers available in the market, the prices have spiked by about 10% on average on the entire range of crackers this year.
Ankit Jaiswal, a seller at Ramadhin Inter College said that there is nothing like green crackers.
“We can consider guns and skyshots as green as they don’t emit a lot of smoke. We have sky shots for between ₹600-8000. This year, a sutli bomb which can emit about 98 dbs of sound per piece is available for ₹300 per box consisting of 10 pieces each,” said Jaiswal.
Pankaj Verma who has been setting up a stall for the last 40 years said that there is a hype for green crackers in the market.
“Whenever you burn even paper it emits smoke. People these days are talking about eradicating pollution, but everybody enjoys bursting firecrackers. Both the motives cannot be possible at the same time,” said Verma.