A report has recommended banning wood heaters in the ACT to protect people and the environment. Photo: Clean Air Canberra.
An independent report into the ACT’s wood heater policy has recommended the removal of old heaters and banning the installation of new ones.
Sustainability and Environments Commissioner Sophie Lewis said her recommendations reflected an “urgent need” to build on the Bushfire Smoke and Air Quality Strategy to protect Canberrans from poor air quality caused by wood heater smoke.
“While some estimates suggest that less than 5 per cent of Canberra households rely on wood as their primary source of heating, wood heaters account for a large fraction of Canberra’s fine particle air pollution in winter months,” she wrote in the report’s foreword.
Commissioner Lewis noted wood heater smoke was associated with adverse respiratory and cardiovascular outcomes, with Canberrans largely unable to protect themselves from the impacts.
A 2019 report also highlighted the environmental burden of wood heater smoke wasn’t geographically evenly distributed, with pollution far greater in the Tuggeranong Valley.
“This situation is particularly concerning given current understandings that there is no safe concentration of particles for sensitive people,” Commissioner Lewis said.
While Canberra does have a Wood Heater Replacement Program, only 36 were removed in 2021-21.
“Of greater concern, it remains legal to install and operate a new wood heater in a home in suburban Canberra,” Commissioner Lewis noted.
“For wood heater smoke, there has been little demonstrable reduction in pollution and associated impacts over time.”
It’s estimated about 11 per cent of Canberrans have a wood heater in their home, but there’s no register to accurately confirm this.
Policy issues identified include inadequate emissions and efficiency standards, difficulty enforcing these standards, failure of education campaigns to improve air quality to safe levels in winter and ineffective wood heater replacement programs.
“While the ACT Government is committed to strengthening wood heater emissions standards and phasing out older wood heaters that do not meet standards, this investigation demonstrates that current policies, plans and strategies for managing wood heaters in the ACT are insufficient to protect human health and the environment of the Territory from issues arising from wood heaters,” the report stated.
Commissioner Lewis recommended the government create targets to phase out wood heaters in all ACT suburbs and replace them with electric alternatives (except in rural areas), as has been done for fossil-fuel gas.
Other recommendations include:
- banning the installation of new wood heaters in all ACT suburbs (excluding rural areas) for new and existing builds
- establishing a register of wood heaters in the ACT to determine the number and their age
- mandating the removal of wood heaters before a property can be sold
- introducing mandatory labelling explaining the health risks associated with wood heater usage at point of sale for both wood heaters and firewood in the ACT
- developing and applying empirical criteria for determining environmental harm or nuisance from wood heater smoke, such as an assessment of smoke composition and air quality monitoring at the affected sites, as part of EPA investigations
- including explicit messaging about the health risks associated with wood heater usage in ACT Government education and communication activities, such as the Burn Right Tonight program.
Commissioner Lewis also wanted to see an increase in the number of Ambient Air Quality compliance monitoring stations in the ACT and an urgent assessment of air pollutant emissions to update the 1999 National Pollutant Inventory data.
The installation of wood heaters has already been restricted in some Canberra suburbs, including Dunlop, East O’Malley and the Molonglo Valley (excluding Wright), where planning studies showed they would have an adverse impact on air quality.
When presenting this report to the Legislative Assembly on Thursday (23 March), Environment Minister Rebecca Vassarotti said while the government would formally respond to the recommendations later this year, it provided “compelling evidence” that the current approach to managing the air quality impacts from wood heaters was “insufficient” to protect human health and the environment.
“This report – on top of the numerous letters I receive regularly from impacted Canberrans – demonstrates that we do need to do more to ensure our policy and regulation of wood heaters properly address their negative impacts, and is contemporary with recommended human health standards for air quality,” she said.
“All Canberrans should be able to breathe freely, and we must ensure we protect the most vulnerable in our community.”
The Commissioner’s report will help inform the second action plan for 2023-2025 under the Bushfire Smoke and Air Quality Strategy, which is expected to be released later this year following public consultation.
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