Tonight most of the annual loyalist bonfires will be lit and afterwards we will have the clean-up.
But rather than concentrate on the damage to roads and surfaces and the cost to the public purse, why not start the clean-up in a different way, with a different perspective?
Instead of starting at Z as we do every year, with outrage and confrontation, with evacuated residents and costly contractors, why not start at A with the young people who continue with this annual tradition in a damaging way.
This is often at a cost to their own community, in terms of destruction to property and facilities and health problems for the old and those with respiratory problems.
A more sizeable cost is in terms of their own future.
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I am endlessly shocked at the language used to describe young people from either community who are by dint of their birthplace and circumstances demonised or written off.
Instead of spending hundreds of thousands dealing with the after effects of bonfires and anti-social behaviour, when are we going to deal with the cause?
Generational neglect, political mismanagement and exploitation so bad it should be criminal.
Children radicalised and exploited as cannon fodder by those who gain from their misery.
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With no aspirations, no future, no prospects to the extent that a big fire is the highlight of their year and a senior position in a paramilitary grouping their only ambition.
And we can point the blame for that in all kinds of directions. We are a post conflict society but that was not these young people’s conflict.
They were not the cause of this sectarian society, they have simply inherited it and as long as the agencies responsible for protecting them keep doing the same failed thing over and over again they’ll keep getting the same results.
Earlier this year young people, some as young as 12, rioting in the Creggan area of Derry were the focus of news reports.
The dissidents who are radicalising and recruiting them, condemning them to a lifetime of prison or death justified their actions with – “if it was ok back then why not ok now?”.
As if their failed and angry existences are anything to aspire to.
Months later and it is loyalist young people who are now in the headlines.
It is a situation I have spent years reporting on and one that eventually I thought would have changed.
Instead millions of pounds have been squandered, used to buy votes instead of better lives.
Used to prop up the existence of paramilitary groups rather than forcing them to disband.
That building projects are hampered by protection rackets, that investments have to be okayed by some bald bloke with anger issues who is a self-appointed gatekeeper to areas in need.
This is a political abusive relationship, a coercive controlling partner who doesn’t want to see their subordinates educated and empowered.
For an empowered generation of young people would not be so compliant, would not be so easily pigeon holed into a sectarian headcount at election time.
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The Northern Ireland Youth Forum recently released a report that asked both loyalist and republican young people their views on bonfires.
And there’s the key point, they didn’t preach to them, they listened to them.
They all expressed an anger at the media portrayal of young people, I fully take this on board.
But significantly many said the bonfire was an opportunity to come together with friends “have a drink and party in the local area”.
“There was no expressed historical or cultural meaning attached to the date or the event. Instead, it was largely seen by the participants as a social occasion that was about having fun”, the report stated.
And in that respect, they are no different to most of us at that age, but wouldn’t it be better that their fun came once a month in the shape of a decent pay packet, or in saving for a holiday abroad, celebrating the passing of exams, an offer to training or higher education.
A chance to celebrate youth and all the wonderful things that come with that.
Would it not be better to fix those aspects of their lives to give them a future rather than demonising them once a year and forgetting about them as soon as the embers of the fire burn out?
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