Asthma Australia have recently released the results of a nationally representative survey (n=25,000) which shows that 77% of people agree that woodfire heaters should not be allowed in urban or built-up areas and over half agree they should be phased out (55%) or banned completely (54%). For those with asthma support for a phase out was even higher - with 84 % agreeing they shouldn't be allowed in built up areas. We think this provides strong evidence of public support for measures to protect the health of the community from residential wood smoke pollution. When consider that wood heaters are used by just 5% of households in major cities, but impact the health of the other 95% who don't use wood heaters. Which begs the question - what is stopping governments from (at a minimum) encouraging people to replace their wood heaters with healthy heating alternatives? For the full survey - click here.
