DURING THIS YEAR'S Spring Festival, sales of fireworks in Beijing were by nearly one-third less than the year before, as a result, there were fewer alarms and injuries than last year. Beijing News commented on Monday:

Having experienced the severe Lunar New Year air pollution in previous years, as a consequence of people setting off fireworks to celebrate the Spring Festival, residents in Beijing generally frowned upon fireworks this year.

Before Spring Festival, the results of a survey by the Beijing Municipal Social and Public Opinion Survey Center showed that more than 80 percent of the capital's residents planned not to set off fireworks.

The authorities have made significant achievements in raising residents' awareness of the risks and downsides of fireworks including the fire risks and deterioration of the living environment in the capital.

But as well as these obvious issues, fireworks also increase the cost and burden of running the city each year before Spring Festival as the municipal government has to invest a lot of manpower to alert residents to the risks and enforce the ban in areas where fireworks are forbidden.

It can be said that the setting off of fireworks has become not only a risk but also a burden.

It is natural therefore to wonder if people would accept a total ban on fireworks.