are biodegradable fireworks, light shows and drones the clean alternatives to pyrotechnics?

Traditional fireworks contribute to air and noise pollution

Biodegradable fireworks, light shows, and drones can offer an alternative and cleaner change to the future of traditional pyrotechnics. For hundreds of years, fireworks have meant loud bangs and bright colors in the sky as a way to mark celebrations, like New Year’s Eve, national holidays, weddings, and victories. But what happens after the fireworks fade? Our deep dive explores the current climate of traditional fireworks and the potential of the biodegradable ones alongside drone technology and light shows as cleaner alternatives. Chemically, traditional fireworks get their colors from metals: red from strontium, green from barium, and blue from copper. When these metals burn, they don’t disappear but turn into tiny metal particles that float in the air, making it dangerous to inhale, especially for those who suffer health problems and asthma.

While old fireworks were wrapped in paper, the modern ones often use plastic casings because they are cheaper and can hold the chemicals better. In this case, when fireworks explode, those plastics don’t burn up. They instead shatter and fall into parks, rivers, oceans, and fields, and over time, they break into microplastics, which create water pollution and harm the environment. Not to mention that since a single firework can be louder than 120 decibels, or as loud as a jet engine, the furry pets and other animals find the noise terrifying and threatening, even encouraging animals to change where they live and nest long after the shows are over, as seen in the case of Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang and Arc’teryx’s large-scale fireworks event in the Tibetan Himalayas.

image courtesy of Pyroemotions

biodegradable fireworks and light shows as pyrotechnics

Pyrotechnics can imagine a cleaner future, one that’s filled with biodegradable fireworks, drones, and light shows. For the former, they try to offer a solution to plastic waste and toxic smoke by using thick cardboard, paper bonded with starch glue, and clay plugs that turn into dust instead of burning metals. Companies like Chorlton Fireworks in the UK already sell biodegradable fireworks with mostly paper-based parts, which break down in soil in months instead of hundreds of years. Others are also testing bioplastics made from cornstarch, cellulose film, and other plant-based components that are non-toxic, including events companies Pyroemotions, Red Apple Fireworks, and KEDE New Material, but this area of pyrotechnics is still evolving. There’s a cleaner chemistry involved too when it comes to using biodegradable fireworks, drones, and light shows for pyrotechnics. 

Traditional fireworks use chemicals called perchlorates to explode, which are inorganic salts that dissolve in and can poison water and affect people’s thyroids. With the newer fireworks, they use nitrogen-rich fuels, and they can burn a bit cleaner, but they still mostly release nitrogen gas and carbon dioxide. They also use less metal for color, which means fewer toxic particles in the air. On top of this, many biodegradable and green fireworks remove the salute, the part that makes the big bang, and instead use softer bursts, let the sparks drift instead of explode, and stay around 70 to 90 decibels compared to the 120 from traditional fireworks. The downside is that these dubbed cleaner and biodegradable fireworks cost more because of the new materials; the cleaner components are much more difficult to make, and there are no big factories yet that can produce them at scale.

image courtesy of Pyroemotions

Drones light up the sky without explosions and noise

If not the biodegradable fireworks, the future of pyrotechnics can still glow without exploding at all. Here come the drones and light shows, posing as fireworks that fly instead of burst. Drone shows use hundreds or thousands of small flying drones with LED lights. Each drone is controlled by software, like a tiny robot actor in a giant sky theater. In some cases, the GPS tells each drone exactly where to go, the LEDs change color instantly, and computers plan their movements 100 times per second. Unlike fireworks, drones don’t make smoke, leave debris, and can be reused again. Some studios and companies are already leading this, such as Studio DRIFT in the Netherlands. 

Their drone project named Franchise Freedom, which appeared at Art Basel and Burning Man, among many others, moves freely in the sky as it glows and without exploding. Aerial production studio SkyMagic, as well as Verge Aero, has also used drones in their pyrotechnic shows, even bringing these flying devices to Super Bowls and Olympic ceremonies. On the other hand, drones can use lithium batteries, which are not healthy for the environment because mining lithium causes pollution. Unlike fireworks, however, drones can be reused many times and still offer less pollution, harm, and microplastics during celebrations.

Chorlton Fireworks sell fireworks with mostly paper-based parts | image courtesy of Chorlton Fireworks

Some designers, artists, and creatives even go further, using nature itself as the light source. Glowee, a French company, works with glowing bacteria found in the ocean, which naturally produce light without heat or electricity. The team grows them inside transparent containers filled with nutrients, and the result emits a soft, blue glow that produces no waste, uses no power grid, and is completely biodegradable, unlike traditional fireworks. At the moment, the company uses it for signs and installations, not sky shows, but it points toward a future where light doesn’t need fire at all. There’s also the Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde, who created SPARK.

It is a show that looks like fireworks made of floating stars. Instead of explosions, it uses tiny biodegradable bubbles, light and wind, and human movement. The result is participatory in nature, silent for the environment, poetic in concept, and leaves nothing behind, allowing the artist to describe it as ‘organic fireworks.’ Some studios allow these future-oriented pyrotechnics to happen around instead of above us. Take the Canada-based Moment Factory, which creates immersive night experiences instead of short shows. Their Lumina Night Walks turn forests and parks into glowing stories using light projections, sound, and storytelling, and the project invites visitors to walk slowly through these illuminated spaces without smoke and explosions; just light and time.

AURA Église Saint-Roch, 2025, Québec City | image courtesy of Moment Factory

Still, companies use traditional fireworks during pyrotechnics shows, but a few of them have started modifying the program. Groupe F, who’s famous for shows at the Eiffel Tower and Burj Khalifa, now mixes fewer fireworks, more drones, and additional projection mapping and live performers to complete their shows. The others, however, are still yet to take their steps towards a cleaner alternative. When it comes to regulations, fireworks are mostly guarded for safety, not the environment. They’re legal in the US, except in Massachusetts, which imposes a complete ban, and in the EU, the use of chemicals has restrictions, but the label ‘green’ fireworks is yet to be discussed.

While fireworks are not disappearing, they’re slowly changing and evolving as the environment faces their consequences. Pyrotechnics imagine a future where these celebratory means burn fewer metals, use more biodegradable and low-noise ones, and incorporate more drones, lights, and immersive experiences into the shows. These alternative and biodegradable ones are yet to be scaled and commercialized due to their cost and question of material resource, but thanks to the active creatives making the shift – like Studio DRIFT, Roosegaarde, SkyMagic, and Moment Factory – the future of pyrotechnics can light up the environment quietly, cleanly, and still brightly.

AURA Église Saint-Roch, 2025, Québec City | image courtesy of Moment Factory

Wind of Change by Studio DRIFT | image courtesy of Studio DRIFT; photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy of DCT Abu Dhabi

Franchise Freedom by Studio DRIFT | image courtesy of Studio DRIFT; photo by Ossip van Duivenbode

Glowee works with glowing bacteria, which naturally produce light | image courtesy of Glowee

project info:

companies and studios: Chorlton Fireworks, Pyroemotions, Red Apple Fireworks, KEDE New Material, Studio DRIFT, SkyMagic, Verge Aero, Glowee, Moment Factory, Groupe F | @chorltonfireworks, @pyroemotionsltd, @redapplefireworks, @studio.drift, @skymagicdroneshows, @vergeaero, @weloveglowee, @momentfactory, @groupe.f

artist: Daan Roosegaarde | @daanroosegaarde

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