Steve wrote:

I now have TWO full canisters of expired flares, both hand held and 12
gauge, with expiration dates that make them old enough to buy booze. I keep
the flares that are up to 3 years expired for backups, just in case, behind
the canisters of the unexpired flares.

I've asked 3 fire departments, 3 police officers, the USCG Auxiliary and the
USPS (Power Squadron, not the post office) and all I get is "I don't
know..." or, one fire department told me to take them out on the Chesapeake
Bay and fire them horizontally, preferably at Bayliners.

What do YOU do?


In my country, we have basically three options:

1. Using them at new year evening, as it is commonly accepted by the
authorities to set off flares at new year evening provided this is
done in a manner where the flares "drown" in all the other
fireworks.

2. Using them for training and demonstration purposes provided this
is done after prior notification to the police and/or the local
RCC (Rescue Coordination Centre).

3. Returning them to a store selling flares, as there is now a
regulation in effect that make it compulsory for any store selling
flares to also take expired (or in other ways unusable) flares in
return for proper destruction, and this is fully independent of
whether the flares initially were bought in that store or not.



Stig Arne Bye

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