Each time I look at this map, local stations show warnings in Belgium of extremely unhealthy air.

[https://aqicn.org/map/belgium/fr/](https://aqicn.org/map/belgium/fr/)

It is clear this is from the wood burning stoves. Everyone can just buy wood burning stoves in Belgium without limits. Why? There are many cities around the world that banned these.

Belgium has good social housing and social proteciton against energy prices. There is no reason to have tens of thousands of wood stoves being sold.

There is no doubt this horrible air quality I am noticing is from wood stoves.

Reuters said that yesterday Poland had the second worst air quality in Europe after India, from all the wood burning.

A few months ago studies showed wood burning is far worse than cars for air pollution.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/15/wood-burners-emit-more-particle-pollution-than-traffic-uk-data-shows](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/15/wood-burners-emit-more-particle-pollution-than-traffic-uk-data-shows)

Yesterday data showed that even ‘ECO’ wood burners are 450 more polluting than gas heating. And doctors in the UK are sounding the alarm bells.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/08/eco-wood-burners-produce-450-times-more-pollution-than-gas-heating-report](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/08/eco-wood-burners-produce-450-times-more-pollution-than-gas-heating-report)

Why are there no limits to who can burn wood in Belgium. The government should do something.

36 comments

  2. Because paying 1000 a month on energy is too much for the average person even half that. If you earn too much there is no protection.
    I understand the concern but I do not blame the people.

  3. Because we enjoy looking at burning wood. It makes us feel all cosy and fuzzy(probably partially due to lack of oxygen and cleab air).

  5. Because right now, it’s a lot cheaper to heat using wood than it is gas/electricity.
    Also, a thing a lot of people seem to dismiss is the fact that the trees that are burnt, are made up of loads of Co2 that they pulled out of the air before that. And yes, that gets released while burning it again. But you can’t ignore that fact.

  7. Air qualitity in belgium isnt horendous at all. Its quite avarage for an industrialised country. I see your agenda and wipe my ass with your statements.

  9. Burning wood will be illegal withig 15 years. Steps were already being taking in the EU I believe.

    Before war in ukraine I said within 5 – 10 years. It’s pushed back this agenda quite a bit.

    I think it’s a good thing. If we are gonna ban smoking at work, (and in public in many area’s), ban fossil fuel cars etc etc. it kinda weird that you would still allow people to burn all their shit randomly.

  10. Belgium? Er zijn amper meetpunten in Wallonië en degene die er zijn, zijn dan nog eens geconcentreerd rond enkele plekken. Deze kaart zegt iets over Vlaanderen/Brussel, en dan nog is dit niet horrendous. China en Indie bv, dat is horrendous.

    Trouwens ook geen enkel bewijs dat houtkachels een meetbare impact hebben. Lijkt mij dat de OP zonder nood aan bewijs al een conclusie klaar had.

  15. Finding a single root cause to a complex problem is often tempting, but mostly wrong. There are plenty of particulate emissions that are harmful, and while wood fires are one of them, they are by far not the only one.

  16. What about the harbours.
    what about the chemical plants.
    what about the gas turbines.
    What about trucks that transit through the country and literally stand in our traffic for hours.

    Just another greenboy lulling about NIMB principles.

    It’s soo easy to blame it all on wood stoves…
    People do no longer have the choice due to bad political management, the wat and post-corona.

    Don’t make the bill for other people.

    I would say, keep blasting that – green – option. As wood is renewable…

  17. I’d like to see a source of which countries banned wood stoves. It seems like the most difficult thing to enforce.
    And bad air quality in Belgium is also very much caused by road traffic.
    It all depends on which kind of pollution you talk about also.
    https://environnement.brussels/nos-actions/projets-et-resultats/les-emissions-de-polluants-qui-affectent-la-qualite-de-lair-en

    When I look at the map I have some remarks:
    1) Zooming in on the Netherlands doesn’t show a much better view of the urbanized zones
    2) there are far less measurements points on big cities in France, less comparable and I doubt that Lille has a very different
    3) Chinese project… I don’t trust the source

  18. >Reuters said that yesterday Poland had the second worst air quality in Europe after India

    Something’s not quite correct.

  19. Oh right.. It’s the wood stoves is it?

    And I thought it was all the cars and the factory’s.

    Guess I’ll just let my kids freeze to death this winter so everyone can drive thier 4x4s through thier small villages.

    Stupid Me.

  20. You sure about your interpretation? Because for me locally, all the bad air qualities from your map also seem to be busy traffic spots. That would presume no one outside of those spots use a wood burning stove which I find very hard to believe.

  22. Wood stoves are very common and used daily in the winter in Finland and Estonia almsor, but according to this map, the air quality is far better. Maybe it’s not the stoves?

  23. My boyfriend is a mega groene jongen hippie and he doesn’t understand that wood stoves are terrible. He thinks wood fire is ‘natural’ so it’s ‘good’. Pellet stoves are for ‘pussies’ and central heating is also for pussies. He thinks the trees around his chalet absorb the huge amount of soot his crappy little stove pumps into the air..

    I have had to take breaks away from him to clear my airways. It’s the typical thing where he knows that it’s not right, but because he likes sitting by a fire so much, he will just bend the truth.

  25. Looking at your first link, the live time classement, Belgium is 65th, Netherlands 113th, France 118th and Germany 119th

    So, telling me again what’s the issue with Belgian air?

  26. It’s undeniable that wood burning has a serious effect on our air quality. Of course it’s fun to have a fire going, but doing this wrong (using treated wood, wet wood, etc…) or not properly maintaining your wood burner should be avoided.

    The numbers:
    49,2% of fijn stof in the air comes from households. 86% of this comes from burning wood

    77,8% of PAK’s comes from households
    85,46% of this comes from burning wood

    Source: VMM, data from 2020
    https://www.vmm.be/sectoren

    And of course energy prices are high and a wood burner is fun and cozy.

  27. I’m glad to live in a newly build neighborhood, not a single house is build with a woodstove in mind. I’ve got a lot of breathing issues with fine dust.

  28. Mischien de energy prijzen eerst eens drukken , ondertussen stook ik gewoon lekker verder 👌🏼

  29. I was working in Aartrijke past week replacing streetlights and there was this one house with pitchblack smoke coming from the chimney, i swear they were burning old shoes or something nasty, it stank like hell.

  30. Jezus dude. Let people live. Who are you to tell who can burn a wood stove or not? Thanks God they can at least experience some warmth in these days.

  32. Why can we buy wood burning stoves? Because it freezes here in winter, and there are some irrelevant parties needing to be appeased by blocking all relevant forms of energy in order to form a majority gouvernement.

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