2023-07-13 09:18:02
Until mid-June, Vishitra Pieters (57) from Leeuwarden entered her ‘isolation room’ every evening at half past six. A small bedroom in the house where she lives with her husband Ronnie (71). In recent months she had to flee from the wood smoke emitted by thirteen stoves within a hundred meters of their house. “All the cracks and windows are sealed with tape,” she points out. There she sits opposite an air purifier. For her, it’s the only way to prevent stinging eyes, itching, coughing and foaming at the mouth. “And then I’m not even an asthma patient,” she says.
The Pieters couple have been fighting once morest the nuisance caused by wood stoves for seven years. They tried to find a solution with flyers, articles in the neighborhood magazine and conversations with stokers. Without result and resulting in neighbours’ quarrels. Pieters: “The stoker simply says: it is allowed. There was a quarrelsome atmosphere.”
Discouraging is not enough
The couple recently asked the municipality of Leeuwarden for the third time to conduct a thorough investigation into the odor nuisance. But this was rejected. Pieters has mixed feelings regarding the proposal of demissionary state secretary Vivianne Heijnen (CDA) to discourage wood-burning and possibly build wood-free neighborhoods in the future. “On the one hand, I am pleased that the national government is launching a campaign regarding the harmful effects of wood smoke. But on the other hand, discouragement is not enough. Name a date on which new wood-burning stoves may no longer be sold.”
The Netherlands has approximately 1 million wood and pellet stoves. Due to the high energy prices, people burn longer and more often, Pieters knows. “In our district, heating was done in the morning and in the followingnoon. That is not only bad for us, but for the entire neighbourhood, including the stokers themselves.”
If the firing indicator turns orange: firing is prohibited
Exposure to wood smoke can lead to health problems, according to the RIVM. At 23 percent, smoke from wood-burning stoves is even the largest source of particulate matter emissions in the Netherlands. In addition to particulate matter, wood smoke also contains volatile organic compounds and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), which can be carcinogenic, according to the independent research organization TNO. Especially people with respiratory diseases or cardiovascular diseases, but also the elderly and children, can get health problems from the smoke. The Lung Fund says that 750,000 Dutch people with lung disease regularly suffer from shortness of breath due to wood smoke.
Some municipalities are taking measures, such as Amersfoort. There is a ban on burning with wood stoves if the heating indicator turns orange, with a weak wind. Incidentally, that ban will not take effect until the Environment Act comes into force, presumably 1 January next year. The municipality can then enforce if reports are received regarding wood stokers.
Leeuwarden is not that far yet. Alderman Evert Stellingwerf (GroenLinks) says that the municipality can only discourage the burning of wood. “The options for enforcement are very limited, also because there are no clear standards and measurement methods for wood smoke. What is harmful distribution and how do you determine it? The Building Decree is not unequivocal in this.” He does recognize that burning wood is ‘unsustainable’ and that it emits ‘harmful substances’ that are detrimental to people and the environment.
Cough and headache
Visithra and Ronnie Pieters experience this every day. There are no fewer than nine air purifiers in their home, one of which measures indoor air quality. “They don’t help on bad days. Then we drive to the Afsluitdijk to breathe fresh light.” They can no longer ventilate anyway. “The worst thing is that we have been deprived of our freedom in and around our home. We have all kinds of chronic complaints such as coughing and headaches.”
Two years ago Anton Lijfering responded to Pieters’ call to turn off his wood-burning stove, one street away. “It bothered him and as a neighbor you have to take that into account,” he says, standing in his front door. “I smell those wood stoves myself and that is not a pleasant smell. If someone gets health problems, I don’t turn on the stove anymore. I just lit it for fun anyway.”
Read also:
The State Secretary wants to ban the stove and the fire pit with subsidies and heating-free districts
Better information and perhaps also wood-fired neighborhoods should prevent the pollution caused by burning wood, writes State Secretary Heijnen.
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