How much air pollution does wood burning create?

12th June 2023

Are you thinking of installing a wood burning stove or re-opening your fireplace, or do you know someone who is planning to? Please take a look at the graphic below.

There is so little awareness of the amount of air pollution given off when we burn wood, and the data involved can feel complicated and confusing. So when independent data visualisation designer Chris Woods approached us to work on a project, we were drawn to the idea of creating a simple way to visualise the data in Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty’s 2022 air pollution report.

Solid fuels are the most polluting method of domestic heating

The data for the graphic is taken from Figure 10 on Page 16 of the 2022 report, which notes that:

• Defra exempt / Ecodesign wood burning stoves are over four hundred times more polluting than gas central heating

• Open fires are four thousand times more polluting than gas central heating

Domestic wood burning is increasing

In 2022 there was a 40 per cent increase in the numbers of wood burning stoves sold. Latest government figures show that particulate matter (PM2.5) from domestic wood burning increased by 124 per cent between 2011 and 2021, to represent 21 per cent of total PM2.5 emissions in 2021. This is a staggering amount of pollution when you consider that in 2021, only 8 per cent of the population were burning fuel indoors.

The science is clear

When we burn wood, we are pushing toxic emissions into our houses and neighbourhoods, which is damaging all of our health. We all want to breathe clean air; please think twice about burning wood. For more info, head here.

And many thanks to Chris Woods for creating the above graphic for us. If you would like to share them, you can download the two sizes below.