San Marino. Pollution of wood fireplaces and pellet stoves, the reflection of a San Marino woman
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Dear manager,
thanking you for the space you offer me, I would like to try to draw attention to an extremely serious problem: environmental pollution due to the increasingly frequent use of wood-burning fireplaces and pellet stoves in our country. The situation worsened further, becoming unsustainable in some areas during this arid winter, with long periods of lack of rain and still, stagnant air.
The problem is felt more dramatically in densely populated residential areas, where the houses are arranged in a sloping manner and also have structures and fireplaces that date back to the seventies and eighties of the last century.
Already starting from the first period of confinement due to Covid 19, many of the inhabitants have rediscovered the use of the fireplace and, lately, probably also due to the strong increases in gas and energy prices, including wood and pellet stoves. It is a common opinion that these heating systems are more ecological, but inquiring about specific and reliable sources, it can instead be established that this type of biomass (wood and pellets) are much more polluting than methane gas and even diesel, to the point that in many Italian cities have been banned from use.
In areas where fireplaces and pellet stoves are used intensively, not only is the air unbreathable and causes dry mouth, burning in the throat and respiratory problems, but it limits the quality of life of the people who have to undergo these exhalations. , preventing them from leading a normal existence, such as simply opening windows or staying in the garden.
Furthermore, often the smell that spreads is not only that of burnt wood but also hints of unbreathable chemicals, probably due to materials used to chemically clean the flues.
I wonder what ecological awareness there is in this country if there are no rules that prevent pollution in this way, even more so, I repeat, in this period of climate emergency.
Is it possible that no one realizes that the right to light a fireplace or a pellet stove cannot be worth more than the right to people’s health and the possibility of maintaining a normal quality of life?
Are there no rules in this regard? I say this because the Environmental Protection Office tells me that the laws currently allow the use of these heating tools, without specific legislation. Do you ever come? And why then do the competent bodies not make precise proposals to the secretariats of reference, calling for regulation and, where necessary, a limitation on the use of these systems?
Shouldn’t there be, for example, a control of the exhausts of chimneys and stoves on the composition and class of substances used, on how the fuels are dispersed, on any damage that can be caused to neighbors and the environment?
Yet I read that outside our territory the regulations are very strict.
The protection of people’s health is a serious problem that must be taken seriously.
Thank you.
Rosanna Ridolfi