Do you want to help your neighbours who have asthma? Stop using your wood burner this winter.
Wood burning stoves and coal fires are the single largest source of the pollutant ‘PM2.5’ – a form of pollution that can cause respiratory and cardiovascular illness and which is estimated to contribute to 29,000 premature deaths in the UK each year. The World Health Organisation has identified it as the most serious air pollutant for human health and recent studies show links between coronavirus-related deaths and long-term exposure to PM2.5.
Saturday 5 December is commemorated as “Smog Day”, the anniversary of London’s Great Smog, which is estimated to have killed 12,000 people. This year, it falls amid an inquest into the death of nine-year-old south Londoner Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah in 2013, who lived 30 metres from the busy South Circular road in Lewisham and died in 2013 after a severe asthma attack following three years of seizures and hospital admissions. Despite the Clean Air Act, air pollution is still thought to kill between 28,000 and 36,000 people in the UK every year.
Although many people believe burning wet wood is the real problem, even burning seasoned, dry wood releases large amounts of pollutants, say East Sheen clean air campaign group Mums for Lungs. They are asking everyone who has a stove for secondary heating, to try to limit the number of times a year you use it.
The current PM2.5 pollution level in London is moderate (on Tuesday 7th December).
For many years Richmond has been a ‘Smoke Control Area’. This means that you cannot emit grey smoke from a chimney and should either burn an authorised fuel or use an ‘exempt appliance’, for example a Defra approved stove. Authorised fire logs or coal are treated to reduce pollutant and so can be burned on an open fire. Dry storage is essential – any damp fuel may cause smoke, according to the Council’s press release.
Residents are encouraged to use exempt stoves or open fireplaces for special occasions only and to ensure they always burn an authorised dry fuel. Please check the label of any fuel before it is purchased. Authorised fuels will say that the product is suitable to burn in a Smoke Control Area. You can be fined up to £1,000 if you break the Smoke Control Area rules.
As of next year, the government will begin to phase out the sales of the two most polluting fuels, including house coal and wet wood.
For more information go to https://richmond.gov.uk/smoke_control_and_bonfires
