Indoor air pollution from New Zealand’s 523,000 wood burners was estimated to account for 446 hospital admissions for heart and lung problems, and 101 early deaths annually, in a country with a population of just over 5 million people. Breathing fumes from gas cooking indoors created more than 1,000 hospital admissions, 208 early deaths and more than 3,000 new cases of childhood asthma each year.
Live in a place like Heretaunga Hawkes Bay where in winter you get very still nights with a pocket of really cold air that traps the smoke from wood fires from dispersing and its pretty apparent just how polluting using wood to heat homes can be.
At times in winter a 15 minute walk from town to home and your clothes will reek like back in the old days of smoking ciggies inside in pubs.