Levels and health risks of PM2.5-bound toxic metals from firework/firecracker burning during festival periods in response to management strategies.

Daily PM2.5 was collected in the periods before, during and after the Chinese Spring Festival (CSF) in both 2016 and 2018 to clarify the annual variation in the concentrations and health risks of toxic metals under different firework/firecracker (FF) management strategies. PM2.5 and bound metals all decreased during the CSF from 2016 to 2018. According to relative abundance analysis, toxic metals, i.e., Ba, Pb, Cu and Cr, showed obvious peak concentrations and abundance levels on intensive FF burning days, i.e., New Year's Eve, Chinese New Year and the Lunar Festival. In both CSF periods, three sources of toxic metals, namely, FF burning, coal combustion, and resuspended dust and vehicle emissions, were identified by positive matrix factorization (PMF). Among them, the mass contribution of FF decreased from 0.83 μg m-3 (11%) in the 2016 CSF to 0.23 μg m-3 (9.0%) in the 2018 CSF. The FF-attributed noncancer and cancer risks due to metals for residents under long-term exposure were 0.02 (19.9%) and 1.76 × 10-7 (17.9%) in the 2016 CSF and 0.01 (20.2%) and 8.59 × 10-8 (14.7%) in the 2018 CSF. Although a policy shift from "restriction" to "prohibition" regarding FF has indeed decreased toxic metal concentrations and health risk, Cr(VI) and Ba should be examined more closely in the future because they have become dominant contributors to cancer risk and noncancer risk, respectively.