Clean Air Night will be with us again on 24th January 2025 and we will be out promoting it. This year Global Action Plan and Impact on Urban Health launched the UKs first Clean Air Night to focus on the pollution caused by the rise in popularity of solid fuel burning, in particular, wood burning from wood burning stoves and open fireplaces. We were out in Stirling town centre that week informing the public of the sometimes uncomfortable truths of wood burning.
Clean air is vital for us to have healthy lives but it is not so easy to come by on winter evenings and weekends in Scotland anymore. This is because of the rise in the number of wood burning stoves now being used by an increasing number of people. Clean Air Night draws attention to the damage to everyone’s health being caused by toxic wood smoke in neighbourhoods and streets in towns and villages across the country. The video below helps explain it.
When someone lights up an ecodesign woodburning stove, neighbours are experiencing the same amount of pollution that comes from having 6 HGVs driving up and down their street an hour every hour. Many people would find it unacceptable to live with that kind of pollution but it’s a fact that many of us are indeed living with this kind of pollution every single night as can be seen live on this map.
Amongst the many toxic chemicals that are abundant in woodsmoke, there are some that are more measurable than others and people around the UK who are being affected by neighbours using wood burning stoves have installed their own particulate matter sensors on the outside of their houses to measure the pollution coming from their neighbours’ houses. These sensors take readings every 10 minutes and update the readings live online for anyone to view.
Most woodstove chimneys are located within just a few metres of neighbours’ windows, doors and extractor fan vents and these dangerous PM2.5 particles and ultra fine particles that are released from the chimneys are small enough to infiltrate into nearby properties even with windows and doors closed.
Add to that, the fact that the cold still damp air in winter creates a layer across towns and villages ensuring that this toxic woodsmoke pollution underneath cannot dissipate easily, means everyone at ground level inside and outside are being exposed to health damaging particles for a prolonged period of time.
The Scottish Government have stated that they will support future Clean Air Night events and we look forward to seeing what they’ll do this coming year.