AAQG News article: woodsmoke.3sc.net/news June 2014 Wood fire heaters: the hidden killer Article in the SMH and Age by Heath Gilmore. The air pollution from wood fire heaters now poses a bigger immediate health danger to Sydneysiders than cars or cigarettes. Health experts say the growth in wood fire heaters and the resulting smoke accounts for more than 60 per cent of Sydneys winter air pollution, triggering complications among asthmatics, emphysema and chronic bronchitis sufferers. Asthma Foundation CEO Michele Goldman said Australians should be alarmed by the dangers posed by wood fire heaters ....Ms Goldman said the Standards Australia committee had so far had failed to take into consideration the concerns of health groups . She said the committee was dominated by the wood fire heating sector and industry groups with no medical experts among its membership. Australian Lung Foundation spokesman Dr James Markos said wood fire heaters should be banned from urban areas. He said real-life emissions from new wood-heaters had little relationship to measurements from a perfectly operated test model under laboratory conditions. There is no safe level of wood fire smoke in urban areas, he said. Note that only 4.3% of Sydney households use wood as the main form of heating. It takes only a small proportion of households with woodheaters to cause a major pollution problem.
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 23:23:33 +0000
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