facts and figures
Air pollution, is the biggest environmental health threat that contributes to the premature death of millions of people worldwide.
At 51%, wood burning is the largest source of PM2.5 emissions in the EU.
(Wood burning is responsible for more fine dust emissions than traffic)
The most harmful components of wood smoke are invisible to the naked eye. Just because you don’t see smoke doesn’t mean you won’t be harmed.
If you burn one kilogram of wood, 1,000,000 m3 of pure air is polluted. That means an area of 100,000m2 up to a height of 10m
A wood stove that meets the strictest eco-design requirements emits 650 times more particles than a modern truck, study
Wood smoke contains most of the same carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens found in tobacco smoke, but in much larger quantities.
Burning 1 kg of wood releases as much benzo(a)pyrene as 27,333 cigarettes. (Benzo[a]pyrene is one of the longest known and studied cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds)
Researchers have found evidence that wood smoke is more carcinogenic than tobacco smoke and can trigger more gene mutations than traffic fumes.
Wood smoke extract is 30 times more likely to produce tumors than cigarette smoke.
Due to the small size of the fine dust particles, you can hardly protect yourself from them – not even by closing windows
Landfill operators are liable for the safe disposal of ash for 30 years
Burning and heating with wood produces the most harmful particulate matter Burning and heating with wood produces the most harmful fine dust
Doctors previously assumed that health problems caused by fine dust particles could be avoided by reducing the concentration of particles in the air.
But in 2022, researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) came to the conclusion that the effects of fine dust particles do not primarily depend on the number but rather on the source of the pollution, its toxicity and the way in which they enter the body depend. What is striking is that the fine dust particles vary from place to place. The most important source of pollution is strikingly similar: namely heating with solid fuels.
When logs, wood pellets or coal are used for heating, a lot of fine dust is released which is harmful to the health of the local population.
In contrast to power plants, for which there are strict regulations and filter systems, emissions from residential heating systems are not subject to sufficiently strict regulations in most European countries, including Switzerland
“Wood is a natural material. That’s probably why many people are not aware of how harmful burning wood is to their health,” says Gang Chen, aerosol researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute.
The researchers hope that their work will make the public more aware of the effects of building heating on air quality. Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI)
The Federal Office for the Environment FOEN (Federal Office for the Environment) explains that local space heaters must meet European ecodesign emissions standards when placed on the market.
However, a wood stove that meets the strictest eco-design requirements emits 650 times more particles than a normal truck study
To reduce pollution from new wood stoves to an acceptable level, the filters would have to be 99.9% efficient (to achieve the same particulate pollution as a newer truck per GJ of energy), but cleaning at this level can only be achieved with a flue gas condensation system in combination with bag filters or wall flow filters, which is not yet available on the market.
In the canton of Bern, most district heating systems are operated exclusively with pellets. But even large waste incineration plants often need an additional third of wood to increase the temperature.
Even if the filters installed in large incineration plants filter out 99% of the fine dust, the air is still polluted in a way that is harmful to health due to the large quantities that are burned.
Environmental hygienist Manfred Neuberger from the Medical University of Vienna also says that environmental certificates are issued to incineration plants even though they do not meet the limit values. The reason for this is the strong timber industry lobby.
In the course of the energy transition, politicians must primarily focus on geothermal heat pumps, wind power, solar energy and building insulation and not wood burning, Research Austria