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BURNING SOLID FUELS in homes and road traffic continue to be the “main threats to good air quality”, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s annual air quality report.
The Air Quality in Ireland 2023 report is based on results from 115 monitoring stations nationwide.
And while Ireland met the current EU air quality limits last year, it failed to meet the more stringent World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines.
It is a target of the Government’s Clean Air Strategy to meet interim WHO guideline limits by 2026, but the EPA warns that this is now “very challenging”.
Despite “comparing favourably with many of European neighbours”, the EPA said Ireland’s 2023 monitoring results would exceed the soon-approaching 2026 targets.
The main pollutants of concern are fine particulate matter from burning solid fuels such as wood and coal, and nitrogen dioxide from vehicle emissions.
Particulate matter levels are at their highest in the winter because of increased burning of solid fuels in fires and stoves and is a problem more associated with towns and villages than cities.
Particulate matter causes the most health issues because the tiny airborne matter is inhaled into our lungs and chronic exposure is linked to stroke and heart disease.
Traffic in cities meanwhile is the main source of nitrogen dioxide, which can impact our heart and lungs, and the highest concentration occurs where traffic is heaviest.
The EPA report states that around 1,600 premature deaths in Ireland per year can be attributed to poor air quality.
The report calls for households to use less solid fuel and cleaner fuels to heat homes and to reduce use of cars.
The EPA stated that local authorities “can facilitate people to make cleaner and healthier air quality choices by acting on the Solid Fuel Regulations and supporting alternatives to car travel” by investing in public transport infrastructure.
It also calls on local authorities to promote active travel by installing and maintaining safe footpaths and cycle lanes.
Dr Micheál Lehane, Director of the EPA’s Office of Radiation Protection and Environmental Monitoring, said Ireland’s “world class air quality monitoring network” shows that “air pollution is not just a city phenomenon, there are negative impacts in towns and villages right across the country”.
“If we want to achieve our ambition of Clean Air for everyone, everywhere, all year round, then we need to address the emissions from residential heating and invest in transport systems right across the country,” said Lehane.
Roni Hawe meanwhile, EPA Programme Manager, noted that progress on residential retrofit programmes will help to reduce fine particulate matter pollution.
However, she added that “vigilance is needed to ensure that only compliant solid fuel, such as low smoke coal and dried wood, is being sold to householders”.
Hawe said a “strong inspection campaign” by local authorities is required this winter to “make sure all retailers only stock and sell approved solid fuel”.
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I’ve a shed full of turf and all set for the winter.
@Kieran Monaghan: good man.
@Kieran Monaghan: is this the culchie version of “small d**k syndrome”?
@Name: actually the number of up bites compared to Kieran suggest you’re the one with the problem
@You’re Not Serious: up
Votes
@Kieran Monaghan:
You old rebel you.
My stove will keep burning wood, it does it well and I like it.
@Name: Can only speak for my solid fuel burning family. No lung diseases (except for an uncle who was a coal miner) within the last three generations, prior to that unknown.
But the we’re in the countryside with plenty of air swirling around us and low population density.
Just how we like it.
@Name: It’s a closed stove not an open fire so it’s not an issue.
Old people not gonna invest in heatpumps, too expensive
@Colin Keogh: Everything is too expensive
@Colin Keogh:
And unless the house is insulated to a very standard, they don’t work.
@Colin Keogh: plus they cost more to run in an older house.
@Colin Keogh: they are a waste of time unless it’s a new build, or your old house is insulated to the max, and then some more. Government need to get on the HVO wagon and drop the big vat on it, considering they are hundreds of thousands of oil boilers in the country that alone would make a difference, this big push on heat pumps is not the solution, only part of it.
@Hector turtlehead: plus electricity is more expensive that kerosene or logs
More in their line to police the gallons of sewage relentlessly discharged directly into waterbodies untreated.
Leave fires and stoves alone. Humans have always gathered around them and in this damp climate fires are necessary and wood is a renewable resource.
@Hunt Ley: Bagatelle immortalized it in the 80′s
..
@Hunt Ley: you’re born in the wrong century my friend. I presume you also take horse and cart to work?
@Name: no super efficient and EU compliant woodstoves here. Grow my own timber. Ireland best in EU for particle emisdions in smoke. EPA Nanny Nazis and Green ideologues attempting to run our lives. Not into joining hands and singing Kumbya thanks.
@Name: is that you eamon
The increase in bike lanes, many hardly used, over the past four years has seen traffic congestion increase significantly. The congestion and fact cars are sat idling for longer periods must have a negative impact on pollution and the environment
@Alex: stop speaking sense the greens don’t like it!
@Alex: Hello fellow Alex.
We have 40x 20kg bags of Columbian doubles plus a shed full of turf — because it’s what’s needed.
@Osprey: why is it needed?
@Name: because it will be cold you fool why else?
Epa like people with money that have heatpumps and don’t like pensioners trying to keep warm. Lift your heads from the statistics epa.
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: Same pensioners “trying to stay warm” would live longer if air quality wasn’t sh it. It’s a paradox, ain’t it!
@Anthony Curran: they would live longer if they received a proper pension for their years of work and contribution to the state. No doubt this budget will f..k them again………
@Anthony Curran: they would die faster of Hypothermia also you inconsiderate Man. Make alternatives available at affordable prices and people will respond. Everything in the Green Party agenda is about Tax penalties and fines. Try a little more Carrot and less stick. Eventually the Penny will drop with ye. That is if ye still exist after the next election.
Carbon taxes are the new Penal Laws for the less well off. Instead of foreign invaders we have our Green Party Penal Laws
@Anthony Curran: it would only seem longer if living in cold damp houses
@Max Cooper: I agree on more carrot than stick but the green party are not the problem there. They would be happy to give far higher grants to help people switch but don’t have their hands on the purse strings.
@Brendan Cahill: Funny, though, how they have their hands on the purse strings when it comes to filling the purse….even the DRS, while meant to be a “deposit” still needs to be budgeted for in the shopping, at a time families need to be supported.
@Anthony Curran: Fine frosty mornings used have an old wives tale connected to them for killing all the germs. Funny how they kill more OAPs without properly heated houses than germs!
Stocked up on wood for the winter as it’s cheaper. I can’t afford different electrical heating choices as my house is attached to a shop and my landlord would have to install a different electrical meter costing thousands of euro which would undoubtedly be passed on to me in the form of a rent hike. This is why I didn’t qualify for the energy grant last year nor will I get it this year so we’re going to do things my way. The wood was free so with a little bit of sweat and muscle, I can stay a bit warmer this year.
Thanks a pantload, Green Party!
All the EPA are good for is reports and having loads of managers of this and that.
Well able to pick on the little people, but don’t appear to want to take on the big boys.
Take Cement Roadstone in Limerick, another blowout of their fine dust in the last week. This is one of many times this has happened over the years. Yet nothing happens, even though they are supposedly licensed by the EPA.
Just another report to gather dust.
@Donal Ronan: roadstone/irish cement built the country, you ungrateful sh.te
@Oh Mammy: OK. I’ll bite.
Cement Roadstone are one of the biggest Co2 producers in the country, with very little consequences for them.
No big carbon taxes for them, unlike the plebs.
@Donal Ronan: I wrote to the EPA about a local quarry that has no planning pumping millions of gallons of contaminated water into a SAC.
They washed their hands if it.
@Dave Sherman: Genuine question, where is that quarry?
@Donal Ronan: And let’s not forget that the EPA granted permission to Irish cement to burn thousands of tonnes of tires ,paints, medical waste at it’s mungret plant which is surrounded by new housing estates and schools. https://www.irishevs.com/cement-and-the-climate-crisis#:~:text=How%20the%20EPA’s%20approval%20of,at%20its%20facility%20in%20Limerick.
@Athena: N.Kilkenny
@Dave Sherman: Thank you
A large cruise ships uses up to 250 tonnes of fuel a day…. yes a day. A normal size cruise ship uses 150 tonnes a day. Let them go after them and leave the turf fires alone.
@Brendan Kennedy: That’s only 50kg of fuel per person onboard per day for all energy requirements i.e. heat, power, light and propulsion. They would use that individually onshore anyway but a cruise ship is a strictly controlled environment as regards energy efficiency and pollution control, their future business depends on it.
@Luan Willis: I am interested in seeing the figures/breakdown of your 50 kgs/ day coal consumption per person onshore which seems rather high. Do you have a link?
@Athena: Coal?
People would die faster of Hypothermia also you inconsiderate Man. Make alternatives available at affordable prices and people will respond. Everything in the Green Party agenda is about Tax penalties and fines. Try a little more Carrot and less stick. Eventually the Penny will drop with ye. That is if ye still exist after the next election.
Carbon taxes are the new Penal Laws for the less well off. Instead of foreign invaders we have our Green Party Penal Laws
They really haven’t done their home work at all. They dont mention that the new stoves available now with “Ecodesign”. Give off 80% less emissions than open fires and multifuel stoves over 8 years old.. and as regards always looking at the exhaust of a car the dust particles from the tyres and brakes are 90% MORE than what comes out of an exhaust. So buy a new stove and take the tyres off the car and lay off the brake.. problem solved.
@Ray Reilly: euro 7 proposing to monitor microplastics from tyres and particles from brakes. Tyre composition currently not regulated is the main issue. Also government, how about actual green cities, I.e. Planting trees and incentives for roof top gardens and balconies with plants to absorb the co2.
What is the Carbon footprint on the White Elephant of a Children’s Hospital? What about the Carbon footprint of a certain bike shed…any takers?
I am heading to JJ Houghs. I am bringing my own turf.
@Oh Mammy: I have a barn with 9 years of wood fuel in it too
Oh noes, how dare ol’ Barbera light up a fireplace to keep warm.
Lock her up I say!
Burning smoky fuel at home results in the release of microscopic pollutants known as PM2.5 into the air and these are responsible for an estimated 92 per cent of air pollution deaths in Ireland. Heart disease and stroke account for 80 per cent of all deaths from air pollution here, but people also die from lung cancer, COPD and kidney disease as a result of air pollution.
@Anthony Curran: so enlightening…… Yerra, you can’t bate a good roaring fire & a bit of netflix on a cold winters night
@Anthony Curran: mehh. Pure nanny state,
@Ivan Dickson: The smoking ban was also considered nanny state.
@Buster Lawless: It’s looks like we’ve got to a point in human evolution where some people are getting thicker. Enjoy your netflix and your carcinogens.
@Anthony Curran: Kindly note how/where the monitoring stations are located.
My “nearest” one is 18 km away, the second nearest one 27 km, both densely populated towns while our village is spread out with 43 households.
I very much doubt the urban readings are in line with our local ones.
Got a calibrated air quality monitor ordered to do my own readings for the day the fresh air police arrives.
@Anthony Curran: Throwing fake stats isn’t working. Haven’t found a single source related to your claims. Complete BS I would say.
@Anthony Curran: balls to that. Copy and paster
If the President was representing the Irish people then surely it should have been published anyway,what’s the secret about
What about India and China pumping out their coal based emissions.
Load of balls.
@Hector turtlehead: China installed more solar last year than the rest of the world combined, and have likely reached the peak of their emissions- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02877-6
@Brendan Cahill: It’s all BS for China, their numbers are 100% faked, easily verifiable with legit sources. Their pollution levels hasn’t changed and it’s even getting worse.
@Brendan Cahill: I’ve been in China, load of balls
As there is more concrete and the governments are cutting trees out to make cycle lanes we have global warming and the air is much dirty.
We need more green spaces to fight against it as trees are our lungs, they’re producing oxygen… The Green Parties seems doesn’t see it as that won’t made money…
Its cheaper to heat homes with solid fuels so what to they expect! Electric cars are way more expesive than fuel cars so what do they expect! If they want to improve air quality then common sense would tell you that the things that are better for the environment should actually be cheaper and not more expensive!!
Solid fuel cheaper to run and fuel cars are cheaper to buy. What do they expect! It would be common sense to have the things that are better for the environment actually cheaper!!
I only burn tyres to keep warm.
??
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