The Hague to ban fireworks alternative calcium carbide this New Year's

The city of The Hague wants to ban calcium carbide shooting around New Yea'rs. Mayor Jan van Zanen finds it too dangerous to allow in the city and is therefore working on a ban, a spokesperson for the municipality said to Omroep West.

Carbide shooting is a New Year's tradition, added to the list of intangible heritage in 2014, that is particularly popular in in the north and east of the Netherlands. It involves lighting an amount of calcium carbide in a milk can to fire an object - usually a ball - across a field or meadow. With the ban on consumer fireworks this year, the tradition is quickly gaining popularity in the rest of the Netherlands as an alternative.

A number of other municipalities are also working on a ban, including Groningen, Dordrecht, Lisse, Hillegom, Noordwijk and Teylingen. Mayor Carla Breuer of Teylingen told NOS on Saturday that 9 percent of last New Year's injuries involving legal fireworks, were caused by carbide shooting. She called it weird to allow carbide shooting as an alternative to fireworks this year.

The Security Council, the council of mayors that head the 25 security regions in the Netherlands, will also discuss carbide shooting at their weekly meeting on Monday evening. They will discuss a joint approach and what a ban should look like, according to NOS.