Between COVID and winter weather, many of us are hunkered down at home, spending more time indoors now than perhaps at any other time in our lives. So it’s only natural that we want to make our home environments cozy and comforting. During wintertime, that often means lighting a fire in our fireplace or gathering around a firepit. But what many don’t realize is that the warm glow of a fire comes at a high cost to our health.
Wood smoke doesn’t all go out the chimney. Much of it stays inside or spreads throughout our communities. Here’s why that’s a problem:
Burning wood releases carcinogens into our air.
Pollution from wood smoke is linked to health problems like asthma, cardiac arrest, and cancer.
Wood smoke harms our lungs’ ability to fight respiratory illnesses, like COVID-19.
According to the EPA, burning 10 pounds of wood generates 4,300 times more carcinogens into the air we breathe than smoking 30 cigarettes. This can be especially harmful for vulnerable people in our neighborhood, and anything we can do to reduce wood smoke pollution will help our health and our planet.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 3, 2020
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