Week 17: Be real about fires...

It’s dark outside and cold but you’re curled up, just the two of you, a bottle of wine, in front of the cosy glow of a solid fuel fire… no, it’s not Mills & Boon, it’s unromantically very bad for the local environment.

Damp freshly cut wood in particular, I believe, is a very bad burner and releases high levels of fine particulates, which can cause breathing difficulties and drowsiness. So, if you have a real fire get hold of a paper log maker and turn your newspapers into a burnable log, invest in a more efficient wood stove or wood chip pellets.

This doesn’t really affect us but something else that may affect us all is not burning garden waste because it releases carbon monoxide, dioxins and particulates. So instead of burning, hire a small wood chipper through via www.yell.com – one of my most used website favourites – and turn it into compost to use as a ‘nice mulch to suppress weeds on your flowerbed’.