Responding to the DEFRA wood burning consultation — Mums for Lungs Read our guidance on how to respond to DEFRA’s wood burning consultation - deadline 19th March. This is a critical moment to get your voice heard by the government.

🔥 Did you know that #WoodBurning releases tiny particles that get into our lungs & bloodstream, affecting families inside as well as neighbours outside?

The government is consulting on cutting emissions from domestic burning. Please respond by 19th March, and share far and wide! #CleanAirCrowd

Yellow background. Pink logo says Clean Air Crowd. Text says Day 1 - Share a Mums for Lungs social media post.

It's Day 1 of our 7-day #AirPollution challenge.

Thanks to everyone who signed up to take part - we're looking forward to the week ahead!

Today, we're kicking off with a super-easy social media share to help raise awareness of the need for more action on air pollution. #CleanAirCrowd

A fireplace with a wood burning stove. There is a health warning on the stove, in the style of a cigarette packet warning. It says "Burning seriously harms you and others around you".

We welcome the idea of #Health warnings on stoves.

Did you know that:
👉 A 2025 study by UCL discovered that indoor wood burning is linked to a decline in lung function.
👉 Wood smoke contains hundreds of air pollutants that can cause cancer: formaldehyde & benzene are just two.

#WorldCancerDay

>1,200 French communities banning burning firewood because of health & #AirPollution concerns.
Good!
#WoodBurning producing largest amount of killer PM2.5 in UK.
Domestic wood burning costs NHS >£54 million/yr for asthma, COPD, pneumonia & heart disease from toxic air pollution

It hurt when I crashed my bike into a pothole – and it taught me the true price of austerity | George Monbiot Fixing that hole could have cost under £100; the cost of not doing so is limitless. My prang highlights the neoliberal folly of false economies, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Keeping people in poverty is an expensive luxury.
My column on the false economies of austerity, which costs us all a fortune. Despite the government's claims, austerity continues under Labour. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Log burning stoves damage lungs 'in the same way as smoking' Wood burners have been linked to a serious decline in lung function in a major new study

“Log burning stoves damage lungs 'in the same way as smoking,’ new study shows”: www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/uk-worl...

Why do the stove industry want to poison us?

Why are modern wood burning stoves allowed in newbuild homes in the UK Future Homes Standard?

UK government data shows they are very polluting.

Full video on Youtube:
youtu.be/2YgUhzUCPV0

‘I was told I had two weeks to live’ – why are so many young, fit, non-smoking women getting lung cancer? For decades, lung cancer has been viewed as a disease of older men who smoked. Now, cases among young women are on the rise and doctors are baffled. Could air pollution be behind it?

"We’ve got to the point where the burden of ill health caused by #AirPollution is so huge, I’m asking myself: ‘What will it take to make the public demand more action?’." Well said @ellarobertafdn.bsky.social.

Such a powerful read about the rise of #LungCancer in non-smoking, healthy young women.

Policy pathway to reduce air pollution by phasing out domestic burning by 2030 Wood burning in our homes is a key cause of air pollution and has significant impacts both on people’s health and the environment. We outline five critical problems which currently act as barriers to ...

Domestic #Woodburning has significant impacts on health & needs to be addressed urgently by Gov, its the largest source of fine particulate matter PM2.5 in UK homes & of the 8% of population who own a wood stove, 8%, only 8% of these burn out of necessity www.actionforcleanair.org.uk/evidence-res...

Household wood smoke leaves 1.2 million Dutch with lung conditions struggling to breathe Over 1.2 million people with lung conditions in the Netherlands are affected by poor air quality, mainly caused by household wood stoves, barbecues, and fire pits, the Dutch Lung Foundation (Longfonds...

Household wood smoke leaves 1.2 million Dutch with lung conditions struggling to breathe

#AirPollution #WoodBurning #Health
nltimes.nl/2025/09/14/h...

#LAEI2022 | New treasure trove from @mayoroflondon.bsky.social about #AirPollution emission sources in London 2022 with forecasts (as we requested) for 2025 and 2030. #WoodBurning, Diesel, Commercial Cooking and Construction stand out from a look ahead data.london.gov.uk/dataset/lond...

A screenshot from a TV news story. Text says “Ask the Expert: Lung cancer screening.” In the background is a lit wood stove.

In a TV news segment about lung cancer: “In patients that have a history of wood burning, wood-burning stoves, or things used to heat, any smoke exposure—not just smoking, but smoke exposure in general—that’s a risk factor,” Dr. Phillips [a pulmonologist] explained. www.wspa.com/news/ask-the...

No, Burning Wood Fuels Is Not Climate-Friendly As Europe and the United States look to cut their carbon emissions, the biomass industry wants us to pretend that logging forests in the American South could help.

Burning wood emits more CO2 per unit of energy than coal due to wood’s lower energy density. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2006 noted that wood and wood wastes have a greenhouse emission factor ~20% higher than coal.

www.nrdc.org/stories/no-b...

AI-generated image of students sitting in a classroom; one male student looks stressed, holding his head. Text overlay reads: “Air Pollution Hurts Attention and Emotion Skills” with "SMART AIR" logo above.

Breathing polluted air for just one hour can reduce your ability to focus and recognize emotions up to four hours later—even if you only breathe through your mouth.

Clean air helps your brain work better.

Study: nature.com/articles/s41...

‘Silent killer’: Taxpayer media finds ‘burning wood’ a threat to your health Sky News host Paul Murray discusses how taxpayer-funded media has found wood heater pollution as a "silent killer" in Australia. “Today, taxpayer media have finally found the big killer, the big danger, the thing we must do to save lives here at home and change the climate globally, and it is the fireplace at your joint,” Mr Murray said. “Yes, I am talking to you, right now if you are currently warming in an Australian winter with wood, either behind the glass, in the heater or in a beautiful fireplace where you can hear the crackle, well, guess what, my friends, you are part of the problem.”

The tired old “we‘ve been burning wood for thousands of years, so it most be okay” defense:
www.skynews.com.au/opinion/paul...

The Industry’s promises of greatly reduced #AirPollution from new ‘miracle’ eco stoves proved to be hollow: wood burning now UK’s largest source of deadly PM2.5 pollution.
Invisible & harmful, PM2.5 linked to heart attack, stroke, dementia, asthma & permanent harm to children’s growing bodies.

More importantly, our NEIGHBOUR’S heating choice should not impact our health. We get the brunt of the outrageous pollution levels with “modern” stoves being the single largest emission source of Benzo[a]pyrene, Benzene and many other toxic and carcinogenic emissions.

The case for health sector action for clean air Air pollution is now the second leading risk factor for death ahead of tobacco and poor diet globally; in the UK we see some of the worst childhood asthma rates in Europe: the need for the health…

💚 Calling the health sector! Please sign this @globalactionplan.bsky.social‬ letter, backed by ‪@greatormondst.bsky.social‬ & others. It asks Government to adopt World Health Organization #AirQuality guidelines to protect our #Health. This will be presented to MPs at next week's #CleanAirDay event.

Graphic shows an illustration of the brain, heart and lungs. Each has a caption with linked adverse affects air pollution can cause. Heart Health: Dementia, anxiety and depression. heart health: High blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. Lung Health: Asthma, COPD and lung cancer.

Air pollution can harm every organ in your body, posing particular risks to your brain, heart and lung health ❤️‍🩹

This #CleanAirDay, learn more about the health harms of air pollution throughout our lives ⬇️

www.cleanairhub.org.uk

Just signed.

The Government’s backward step on wood-burning stoves puts public health and climate action at risk The Government's decision to permit wood-burning stoves in new builds contradicts growing evidence about the harmful effects these stoves have on public health and the environment.

Impact on Urban Health are doing loads on wood burning:

urbanhealth.org.uk/insights/new...

urbanhealth.org.uk/insights/rep...

urbanhealth.org.uk/partnerships...

You have NOT cleaned the air in many outer London suburbs @london.gov.uk Until you acknowledge the damage from “”Ecodesign” stoves, the lives of vulnerable Londoners are at risk.This Breathe London node is a School Street in a low traffic part of ULEZ, yet Surbiton has worst air pollution in the UK.

Policy pathway to reduce air pollution by phasing out domestic burning by 2030

Wood burning in our homes is now the largest source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution in the UK, with significant impacts both on people’s health and the environment.

Read our newly-launched evidence-based policy pathway for government🔽

www.actionforcleanair.org.uk/evidence-res...

This is your brain on air pollution Air pollution knows no borders -- even in your own body, says public health expert María Neira. In this startling talk, she describes how the microscopic particles and chemicals you breathe affect all...

This is your brain on air pollution

#AirPollution #Health

www.ted.com/talks/maria_...

A quote that says "wood smoke resembles environmental tobacco smoke, for which numerous studies have shown deleterious effects on the respiratory health of children." Koenig, et al. Pulmonary function changes in children associated with fine particulate matter

It’s been known for a long time that wood smoke is similar to cigarette smoke and that it harms children. The study this quote is taken from, for instance, was published in 1993. (It found that fine particle pollution from wood burning makes breathing more difficult for young asthmatic children.)

Why is there no health warning on a wood stove?

Wood smoke contains most of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke, including benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Tobacco products have had health warning messages for years - it's time for stoves to have the same. #AirPollution #Health

Yep!

"The fundamental reason certification test procedures are not predictive of real-world emissions during in-home use is that there is a host of variables that make in-home usage quite different from the controlled test conditions in the laboratory."

web.archive.org/web/20170622...

www.gpsj.co.uk?p=9782

Has wood burning pollution really reduced in the UK? A comment from a wood burning stove installer on twitter.

medium.com/@ChronicIlln...

Replacing fossil fuels and biomass with cleaner alternatives in residential heating and cooking can decrease the social health costs, say researchers - EPHA New report by CE Delft investigating the health-related costs to society of outdoor air pollution caused by residential heating and cooking.

However, this lobby group has been effective in manipulating UK policy, where wood stoves are now permitted as 'secondary heating sources'.

I wrote about the Stove Industry Alliance and why people burn wood here: medium.com/the-new-clim...