Brighton has some of the highest levels of toxic air particles in the country in part because of the spread of wood burners.
Despite having elected Britain’s first – and so far – only Green MP and the first Green council, wood burners appear to have become increasingly popular in Brighton and Hove.
And the particles that wood burners release are increasingly being linked to health problems such as asthma and cancer.
Annual figures published last week by the government suggest that particulate pollution is slowly declining across Britain as a whole.
But the concentration of particulate matter in the air continues to spike above safe levels in several places across the country, with Brighton and Hove among the worst offenders.
Independent councillor Peter Atkinson said: “The administration and council officers need to take a close look at this information produced by the government.
“We have guidance from the council on wood burners but we need to make sure that residents are aware of it.
“It’s ironic that people may think that they are being environmentally friendly by using wood-burning stoves but the opposite may be true in many cases.”
The government said: “Particulate matter (PM) is everything in the air that is not a gas. It consists of a huge variety of chemical compounds and materials, some of which can be toxic.
“Due to the small size of many of the particles that form PM, some of these toxins may enter the bloodstream and be transported around the body, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs.
“Therefore, exposure to PM can result in serious impacts to health, especially in vulnerable groups of people such as the young, elderly and those with respiratory problems.
“As a result, particulates are classified according to size. The UK is currently focused on measuring the fractions of PM where particles are less than 10 micrometres in diameter (PM10) and less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter (PM2.5) based on the latest evidence on the effects of PM to health.
“Fine PM (PM2.5) and the precursor pollutants (that can form secondary PM) can travel large distances in the atmosphere.
“A proportion of the concentrations of PM that people in the UK are exposed to come from naturally occurring sources such as pollen and sea spray and some is transported to the UK from other European countries or international shipping.
“However, around half of UK concentrations of PM comes from anthropogenic sources in the UK such as domestic wood burning and tyre and brake wear from vehicles.
“As such, it is in the interest of the UK to measure concentrations of PM in a range of locations that are both typical of population exposure and that have a greater influence from sources originating from human activity.
“This approach enables us to assess both exposure to PM and understand contributions from key sources that can be tackled via UK policies.”
Concerned about pollution?
Wait till VG3 kicks in!
Good point. We ought to have a ULEZ too.
No dumb dumb a park and ride is more appropriate as if you even botherd to read the article it states brake dust and tyre wear as a main contribution of particles, electric cars have brakes and tyres so a better solution is to lessen the amount of cars on the road through a park and ride like almost any other normal 21st century city. ULEZ actually makes more pollution as your making people scrap and buy cars. Most of a cars fumes come from it’s production in the first place
Not surpizing as people cant afford gas and electric anymore.
Wood has to be very dry. COsts less than gas these days so preferred if you have a fireplace.
Despite having elected two Labour MPs and a majority Labour council, wood burners appear to have become increasingly popular in Brighton and Hove.
But the Marxist party called themselves the green party, so if you call yourself an environmental protection party, usually good to actually promote policies that are environmentally friendly, but as we all know, that is not the way of champagne socialism.
But it’s wood, not asbestos.
Wood was the only type of heat source humans had for thousands of years, most of those years without doctors and certainly without environmentalists and other minority interest groups who do their best to brow beat the majority of society into conforming to their petty, self centered views. Did the human race die out due to particulate matter in the atmosphere……….no, it didn’t. Please keep your views to yourselves or form little cliques where you can whine about the environment to people who, like you, can nod and tut while sipping your perrier water.
come on, inhaling carcinogens has always and will always be bad for you. people had the space to avoid being downwind of it thousands of years ago, not so when you live in a city.
i get that you’re just being contrarian because you don’t like the kinds of people who support green issues but trying to vouch for inhaling black smoke as being harmless is so stupid. put your mouth over a chimney for a while and get back to us. jfc
Nice one Jfc
Average life expectancy was under 35 for the vast majority of human history. It was completely natural to die from a small cut or a virus or childbirth – or breathing problems caused by burning wood for heating and cooking. Do you really think that medical science is just modern b****cks??
Well, average life was about 35 and there was about 3 billion less people on the planet so maybe it’s time you read a science book or two.
More particulates from heavy vehicles and electric cars than wood stoves!
Oh and candles. The very worst thing in your house.
This is largely the problem with Greens politics, the middle-aged slightly-thick think that turning the clock back is an answer, totally ignoring that there are more humans alive on the planet today than the total that have ever lived. Their thought process has always been oversimplified and they never think more than one step ahead.
Just think of the clean-up after Glastonbury – a Greenpeace event. Not entirely dissimilar.
Tech is the answer – the answer lies in embracing new and better ways, not in going backwards.
Woodburners and all open fires should be banned in towns and cities. It’s just obvious, really.
“There’s more humans alive today than have ever lived” eh? You might wanna re-think that statement, or are you in the “slightly thick” camp?
It’s no accident that more people are resorting to wood burners with the gas and electric price hikes. Now they are to be penalised for using an alternative that they can gather their own free fuel for? That is mental and financial cruelty. If the government really cared they would use their powerful bargaining position to negotiate cheaper mass deals on gas and electricity – or even renationalise and secure national energy – and refuse to allow this obscene profiteering from their own electorate.
Brexit should have meant the opportunity to use our shipyards for building wind turbines and supplying the world, using our industrial heartland for the new opportunities of manufacture of EVs and vehicle batteries, domestic battery development, manufacture of solar technology. Released by the shackles of the EU to once again become a self-governing productive nation.
No. We got none of that.
Fuel companies stand to lose income and the government revenue if significant numbers of people start to use wood for their home heating. Wood is generally free and much cheaper than electricity gas or oil. It is therefore in the interests of government and suppliers to protect their profits by making the argument that burning wood is evil.In the USA some states have made going off-grid illegal, not because of environmental concerns but to ensure that there is no loss of revenue. This official demonisation of the woodburner is part of the plan to maintain the status quo, in many cases buying off ‘expert’ opinion to push their agenda. The privatised fuel industry has got a lot to answer for in its obscenely excessive prices which cause fuel poverty and the necessity for people to seek alternative ways of heating. They shouldn’t be allowed to have it both ways
How is wood ‘free’? Do you mean stolen, e.g. from Stanmer park? No way could everyone heat their homes on ‘free’ wood taken from the environment – it would run out in weeks, if not days!
Well said
Yet as a city with the ONLY green MP, We burn our recycling? Surely that does far more damage, yes?
EXACTLY!! Moving to Brighton 3 years ago was like going 15 years back in time, in terms of recycling and waste management. Appallingly bad.
You know why, though? Long term contract signed with Vuelio (waste management company) by a Labour council that restricts what can be recycled. Several administrations, Labour and Green, have tried to revise this but found it was too expensive to secure a change in the terms.
The garbage and any recycling that is burnt at Newhaven facility is used to generate electricity https://www.southdowns.veolia.co.uk/facilities/newhaven-energy-recovery-facility
Woodburners started to become popular long before the energy price rises. Many people with central heating wanted to have an open fire or a wood buner to make them feel cosy. For decades it has been known that wood fires are detrimental to health, but people want to feel cosy.
Claims that wood burners were safe were spread around by the burner manufacturers. Claims that it was renewable energy, because wood can be regrown. The government is even subsiding wood pellet burning power stations, due to this fallacy.
The truth is that wood burners in Brighton are the single biggest source of particulates. These have been shown to cross into the bloodstream, have been shown to be in the placenta and in foetuses of pregnant women. Most people in Brighton do not need wood burners and they should be banned.
Cite a source don’t assert opinions.
“what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”
The evidence you needed Andy
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/indoor-wood-stoves-release-harmful-emissions-our-homes-study-finds
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/wood-burning-stoves/article/stoves-and-pollution-aIPXC8g7lbu5
https://www.politico.eu/article/cities-wood-burning-stove-energy-air-pollution/
https://ncas.ac.uk/stove-in-a-lab-scientists-measure-air-pollution-from-domestic-wood-burners/
https://actionclimateteignbridge.org/newsite/page.php/post/wood-burning-stoves-and-air-pollution
https://rehis.com/news/campaign-launched-to-raise-awareness-of-woodburning-dangers/
https://www.fraqmd.org/woodburning-and-particle-pollution-information
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/02/15/wood-burning-stoves-blamed-for-massive-increase-in-uks-toxic-air-pollution/
https://www.lung.org/blog/wood-burning-stoves-and-heaters
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/environmental-research-group/London-Wood-Burning-Project-Report_final.pdf
We need citation for “wood burners in Brighton are the single biggest source of particulates”.
Despite figures from the Stove Industry Association showing record stove sales of around 200 000 in 2022, up 40% on 2021, particulate pollution accredited to domestic combustion fell by 4%. In fact, the average Ecodesign stove produces fewer particulates in an hour of burning, than the tyres of a family car produce in two miles of driving.
Cite a source don’t assert opinions.
“what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”
Andy a quick Google will give you your evidence . There are may sources so you can take your pick of what you trust.
Did try to post a list to help you out but looks to of been taken down. Is not great read but does back up a lot of what Gareth wrote.
I did the calculation myself from a Guardian published study on car tyres and set it against the Kiwa gastec published outputs of the stoves I sell.
2 miles of driving equates to about an hour of wood burning. Wheel spinning, heavy electric vehicles make the situation worse. Why aren’t we lobbying for better tyre technology and lighter vehicles?
This subject is not so much a debate as the rollout of a propaganda machine to control the agenda. Shame on those ‘scientists’ who get well paid to distort the facts.
Recently reported was a survey which found that the winemaking industry generated more CO² than the emissions of airliners and motor vehicles combined, no doubt commissioned by the petroleum industry?
Wood has long been proven to emit less PM than the fossil fuel industry but to quote from this article – “it is in the interest of the UK to measure concentrations of PM in a range of locations that are both typical of population exposure and that have a greater influence from sources originating from human activity”
So if area A is a village of 1000 inhabitants all using wood burners then it is obvious that PM matter can be reasonably accurately measured because it differs from the PM emitted by diesel, coal etc. Unfortunately life isn’t like that and we live and breathe a toxic mix with our oxygen wherever we are. If we ceased to burn wood and fossil fuels overnight we would still be faced with radon gas, methane, radiation, sulphur dioxide and all the other natural products from the processes that are necessary to life on earth.
This is about money, profit, dividends and greed.
Where do you get your supply of tinfoil hats from? Asking for a friend.
I note the energy companies are often trans national corporations. Wood stove companies are rarely bigger than families enterprises.
I have personal liability for my installations, if only OVO, Npower or EDF were equally responsible.
Wood is predominately locally sourced (not valuable enough to import). Electric. coal, nuclear are imported fuels.
Wood is carbon neutral over a 50 year cycle. Nothing else is.
Not as noticeable as the stench of cannabis. I think we don’t have an issue with wood burners, but we’ll target them instead of the ones funding human trafficking and organised crime.
Dan to argue what’s the point as every thing else is bad does very much play into the hands of money, profit, dividends and greed. You have the choice to invest in what you believe in, if that’s polluting your self, family and neighbour’s knock your self out. Big business and it looks like Brighton council will not give a f@2k or you could make a difference to the environment you live in.
No one mentions the fact that wood is not a fossil fuel, back in the early 2000s woodburning was seen as green.
It annoys me that local pollution and global climate change are mixed together by the press just reinfircung the general public’s confusion about all things “Green”
Given that it is usually breezy in Brighton where is it coming from ? Paris maybe ? Local smoke doesn’t hang around here most days
The party in government for over a decade should have put their foot down on the wood burning stove craze that’s erupted since 2010, instead they encouraged it.
I note the energy companies are often trans national corporations. Wood stove companies are rarely bigger than families enterprises.
I have personal liability for my installations, if only OVO, Npower or EDF were equally responsible.
Wood is predominately locally sourced (not valuable enough to import). Electric. coal, nuclear are imported fuels.
Wood is carbon neutral over a 50 year cycle. Nothing else is.