City to ban wood heating
The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands plans to outlaw the use of wood stoves and fireplaces by 2030.
The phaseout will begin in January 2025, when chimney flues will no longer be allowed in new homes.
As of that month, backyard recreational wood burning, including fire pits and wood-burning pizza ovens, will also be outlawed.
The wood burning phaseout is part of a larger air quality improvement plan that will also target road traffic emissions from diesels and some older vehicles.
Utrecht environmental alderman Eva Oosters was quoted in an article in the newspaper de Volkskrant:
Air quality has a huge effect on health. And in cities, the air quality is worse than in many other places. That is why we as a city want to work seriously with this. We really want to take the steps that we can take.
In response to the claim that outlawing wood burning is a restriction on people’s freedoms, Alderman Oosters stated:
But poor air quality also restricts freedom for some. For people who have respiratory problems, for example. We don’t think it’s strange anymore that we’re no longer allowed to smoke in cafés.
The article also quoted Inge Everhardus of the Wood Smoke Free Foundation (Stichting HoutrookVrij):
People burn wood because they find it cozy. But is it really so cozy to sow disease and death around you? Wood burning is much more harmful than people think. Modern pellet stoves, for example, also emit a lot of fine particles, ultrafine particles and soot.
