It may have taken five years, but Canada may finally be getting some green artillery that won’t poison people.

In the process, military scientists have found a more effective and cheaper type of ammunition that could reduce the environmental impact of war across the board.

A research project in the Canadian Armed Forces began looking for a new type of ammunition in 2011 in response to fear that its shooting ranges were posing a threat to local water sources. Explosive rounds, especially from its Howitzer artillery, were being scattered around their training sites, and the military feared that the toxic chemicals inside the water-soluble rounds could seep into drinking water.

So scientists with the Canadian military began researching how to fix the problem. Their solution: make sure the rounds explode fully, and replace the decades-old explosive solution inside them with less-toxic material.