The analysis by the European Public Health Alliance found that the total cost of premature deaths, illness and job loss as a result of outdoor air pollution from heating all homes was € 29 billion per year. Wood burning was the largest single cause of these costs, accounting for 54% of the total in the UK and 40% in the EU. This is despite the fact that wood stoves produce only 11% of the heat in homes in the UK 14% in the EU. The report combines wood burning in stoves and open fireplaces: in the UK two thirds of people use stoves. Wood burners represent the largest share of UK health costs caused by pollution from home heating The researchers said their cost estimates were conservative because their lack of data prevented them from including the impact of indoor air pollution from heating. Compared to transportation, regulators have largely neglected heating and cooking as sources of air pollution, the EPHA said. The report found that heat pumps and solar water heaters do not cause air pollution in the homes that use them. “It is clearer than ever that burning biomass and fossil fuels in the home is not only an environmental problem, but also a major health problem,” said Milka Sokolović, EPHA Director-General. “The solution, obviously, is to ensure that homes are powered by clean renewable energy sources. “As people struggle with high energy prices, we must avoid quick and dirty solutions.” Air pollution is the biggest environmental health hazard, causing millions of premature deaths each year worldwide. In the EU, only one of the pollutants, small particles less than 2.5 microns in size (PM2.5), is responsible for 300,000 deaths a year. A comprehensive global review in 2019 found that air pollution can damage any organ in the human body. Recent reports have highlighted the high levels of pollution produced by wood burners. Stoves emit more particulate matter than traffic in the UK, where only 8% of homes have them and 95% of stove owners have other sources of heating. Wood stoves in urban areas are also responsible for almost half of human exposure to carcinogenic chemicals in dirty air, another study has found. The new report was prepared for EPHA by the Dutch consulting firm CE Delft. The social costs associated with health arose from data from Eurostat and other sources on fuel emissions, energy use and disease links to seven pollutants. These costs included premature death, illness, higher health care costs, and lower productivity. The data was from 2018, the most recent available. Pollution from wood burners results in annual health costs of € 12 billion in the EU and the UK The analysis found that for most countries – 18 out of 28 – the social costs associated with health due to heating their homes were higher than the costs due to the use of cars and other means of transport. The most harmful type of heating was coal boilers, which resulted in losses of 1,200 euros per year and accounted for 64% of total costs in Poland. Wood stoves were the second most harmful, with an average cost of 750 euros per year, causing 84% of the cost in Italy. “For comparison, we roughly calculated that driving a diesel car for a year causes a social cost of 210 euros related to health,” the researchers wrote. In the UK, the social costs associated with wood stove health are about 40 times higher than a gas boiler for a year. “Obviously, when some [fuels and appliances] “They are very polluting, they have a high share of social cost estimates, but only a relatively small share of final energy consumption,” said environmental economist Marisa Korteland at CE Delft. The EU will increase air pollution limits in 2022 and may tighten Ecodesign pollution limits for heaters. The latest Ecodesign wood stoves, which become mandatory in January for new sales in the EU and the UK, emit 750 times more particulate matter than a modern HGV truck, according to an October report. Earlier in March, the UK government proposed new air quality limits for 2040 that would allow twice as much PM2.5 pollution in the UK as proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a ceiling today.
