Modern Wood Stoves: More Broken Promises
Do modern, certified wood stoves actually solve the problem of wood smoke pollution? Recent evidence from the United Kingdom is providing further confirmation that the answer is a resounding “No.”
Our story begins in 1952, a year in which the burning of residential solid fuels helped cause the “Great Smog,” an air pollution episode so severe that an estimated 4,000 people died in a matter of days. As a result, the first Clean Air Act was enacted in 1956, which established Smoke Control Areas that virtually prohibited wood burning in most larger towns and cities. Air pollution from solid fuel burning plummeted.
The story would have ended happily at this point had the wood stove industry not endeavored to find a way around the prohibition on wood burning by touting the wonders of new wood stoves that promised to allow people to burn wood without all that pesky pollution. The updated Clean Air Act of 1993 allowed “DEFRA-approved” wood stoves to be used in Smoke Control Areas. (These stoves use similar “technology” to EPA-certified wood stoves in the United States.)
In 2008, the wood stove industry formed a trade group, the Stove Industry Alliance (SIA). Fueled by the industry’s marketing and public relations efforts, wood stoves became trendy and sales proceeded to take off. In 2003, 500,000 UK households had a wood stove. By 2016, this figure had risen to 1,700,000, and has continued to rise.
Unfortunately, the industry’s promises of greatly reduced air pollution from these new miracle stoves proved to be hollow: wood burning is now the UK’s largest source of deadly PM2.5 pollution.
People who had gone decades—or even their entire lives—having never experienced wood smoke pollution have now found themselves living in a miasma of wood smoke. They’ve noticed the change, and they aren’t happy about it.
Wood stoves and their emissions get regular coverage in the UK’s mainstream newspapers. The group Mums for Lungs has been campaigning against wood burning. Recently, the organization Global Action Plan created “Clean Air Night,” an awareness event to educate the public about wood smoke pollution.
A story on the Doctors and Scientists Against Wood Smoke Pollution website sums up the situation:
“We lived smoke-free in our home until 2015 when “trendy” stoves were installed in fully insulated, centrally heated homes. Now the air is full of woodsmoke most evenings and every weekend September to May.”
DEFRA-approved wood stoves were supposed to improve air quality—not make it dramatically worse.
The situation has become so dire that members of the UK medical establishment have felt it necessary to weigh in. In August, more than 100 senior doctors sent a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer urging the government to take action on wood stoves.
The following month, the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) released a position statement of their own recommending that wood stoves be phased out in urban areas and that rural residents receive assistance to switch away from wood heating in order to protect the health of children.
The wood stove industry has spent millions on lobbying, advertising, and public relations intended to make us believe that newer certified wood stoves burn like magic, with virtually no air pollution.
Real-world evidence from around the globe continues to tell us otherwise.
