from the there's-no-smoke-without-bonfire dept.
Pollutionwatch: how bad are bonfires for the environment?:
A team of French scientists has been investigating air pollution from bonfires. They used a specifically constructed fire chamber: a big room that could easily accommodate one or two whole houses, added instrumentation in the extract ducts, spread a bed of sand on the floor and set about burning leaves and hedge trimmings.
Bonfires are a frequent source of complaints to UK local councils, and in some places these complaints quadrupled during the 2020 lockdown. But little is known about the air pollution they cause. This means they are often assumed to produce pollution that is similar to home fires and wood stoves.
Any gardener (and their neighbours) will know the smell of smoke from burning green waste. Unsurprisingly, for each kilogram burned, garden waste on bonfires produced up to 30 times more particle pollution (smoke) than burning logs in a stove, but smoke from the wood stove contained up to 12 times more cancer-causing polyaromatic hydrocarbons. The pollution from bonfires more closely resembled wildfire smoke, which is being increasingly linked to health problems.
Autumn is coming and so is the annual garden-tidy before winter. The simple message is: do not burn your garden waste; compost it instead or shred it to make a mulch.
Journal Reference:
Camille Noblet, Jean-Luc Besombes, Marie Lemireb, et al. Emission factors and chemical characterization of particulate emissions from garden green waste burning Science of The Total Environment (DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149367)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday September 18 2021, @12:39PM (2 children)
Time and space. Burning something literally makes most of it go up in smoke. The problem is gone, not counting then pollution. If you have to compost or take it to some other facility takes time, effort and space. People are lazy, even people that like to do gardening stuff or just have a garden.
People are probably mostly complaining cause of the smell and the smoke not to fulfill some green fantasies. They are complaining cause other people and their actions are being an inconvenience to them and what they want to do. You want to sit in your garden and your neighbor wants to burn his his leaves and twigs at the same time. Or you want to be in your garden and the neighbor is having a raging BBQ with music next door until the late hours. etc etc. It really doesn't have, almost, anything to do with any environmental fantasies.
From some personal observation I would say the big complaint with burning garden waste is that people are burning things that contain a lot of moisture. This makes it smell like ass and is a lot less efficient then burning things that have dried. This is why you should or normally do burn dried wood etc. You don't burn wet wood (leaves, twigs, dead flowers etc), as it will smell and smoke a lot more and well it's also harder to actually get the fire started. Just chalk it down to the usual explanation of people being idiots.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:45PM (1 child)
You forget a big potential problem with burning garden and yard trimmings: the fire might get out of hand, and burn down your house. Or your neighbor's house.
When I was a kid and we lived in the country, my father burned our trash in the back yard. I guess it was a traditional means of disposal, and they must have burned the trash on my grandparents' farm. Had this metal can with perforations, meant for this purpose. The idea wasn't much good. The can would rust like crazy, and be falling apart after just 3 uses, and he'd go buy another. I suspect one problem was that society was using more plastic. Lots of plastic in the trash makes it burn hotter, and the can couldn't take that. Not to mention all the lovely toxic fumes burning plastic gives off.
More than once, burning embers started a grass fire. He had Mom standing by with the garden hose. When the grass caught, she'd hose it and and he'd beat at it with a snow shovel. The grass fires never got far, they were on it right away, but the fires could have. Especially tiresome was to have to spend the next half an hour spraying water on the grass and trash ashes to make sure it couldn't start another fire. After several such episodes, he gave up on the whole idea as too dangerous, as well as impractical, and from then on, he took the trash to the city dump, which was only a mile from his job.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 20 2021, @03:12PM
It's useful to have a burn barrel. It's not convenient to use it as your main means of garbage disposal. In the event that you are going to do that, you need an incinerator. Not a random burn barrel.
This is what I was thinking of, but apparently concrete is out of style? I went looking for incinerators and saw all manner of metal contraptions, including the burn barrel.
https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2016/11/waste-disposal-history-of-chicago.html [blogspot.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @12:51PM (4 children)
When I saw "bonfires", I remembered the Halloween Bonfires we used to have as part of a neighborhood party. Trimming brush over the course of a year (on several acres of far-suburban property) generated a 8-10 foot tall pile (~3 meters). We had to get a burning permit, but through the '60s that was a formality, to prevent the fire department from responding. To get it going, we used several gallons of kerosene/diesel fuel and the initial flare up was about 50 feet (15m) high. Once it burned down a bit, we could roast marshmallows, and later go inside to duck for apples. Several garden hoses were pre-staged to wet down the surrounding area and put out any little fires--we never had any problems with the fire spreading.
Every now and then I have a chance meeting with one of the kids that attended and we all have fond memories.
Now, I pile the same brush in a little low spot...and it is slowly rotting, takes years.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:16PM (3 children)
Yeah, we did that too, except that first we would tie up all the witches - those women who didn't sink when thrown into the river - to stakes in the middle of the pile. Then we would use pork fat to get that fire going good and hot.
Man, those were the days. People don't know what they are missing. MAGA!
(Score: 1, Troll) by nostyle on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:58PM (2 children)
Naturally, burning yard waste and witches is, in fact, eco-neutral since the CO2 they release came from atmospheric CO2 in the first place.
OTOH, leaving things to compost results in the release of methane - a much worse greenhouse gas.
--
"Well, I can tell by your game, you're gonna start a flame" --Ohio Players, Fire
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:08PM
If the material is being composted properly, the process does not produce significant amounts of methane. Methane is produced when the decomposition is starved of oxygen, the whole point of composting is to avoid this happening.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @06:11PM
"Dude - sorry I hurt your feelz!" -- nostyle
--
Dude - learn what a troll is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @01:43PM (2 children)
We have 3 bins: garbage, recycling, yard waste
You keep it in the backyard to gradually fill up, set it out when full.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @08:37PM (1 child)
It all ends up in the same big bin in the ground, but thanks for sharing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20 2021, @07:30PM
There was actually a decent point in the above trollish comment. Lot of recycling now gets land filled, but some is actually recycled so check with your local garbage disposal service. Yard waste is usually not sent to the land fill and used for various purposes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Saturday September 18 2021, @02:54PM (11 children)
When I lived out in the sticks, we always had a pile out back that was the designated “burn pile”. Fine, yes, it pollutes. But instead of regulating industry that produces many times the pollution, you’re going after rural land owners? Fuck you.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:09PM (8 children)
The same reason why you'd better not make a single mistake in your tax return form on pain of being audited and fined, while rich people with connections and lobbying power enjoy their billions under the sun and "reach an agreement" with the IRS every once in a while in the worst case scenario. You as a peon never get to negociate with the taxman: you pay first and ask questions later.
The state always goes after the peons because the peons have no clout and they're an easy target.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:14PM (6 children)
Especially since this pollution doesn't add to climate change, because the fire's fuel was made from atmospheric CO2 within the last century, unlike burning fossils. It's only a problem for those with COPD or other such health problems which were probably caused by deliberately inhaling tobacco smoke and using bleach far too often.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:17PM
Odd, someone needs to check the code. I was replying to Frosty Piss, Rosco's comment wasn't there when I hit Submit.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:31PM (2 children)
So... "new" CO2 is fine, while "old" CO2 is bad? The CO2 in all fossil fuels comes from atmospheric CO2.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:50PM (1 child)
Yes, that's pretty much the gist of it.
The planet's carbon store is compose of a majority of stuff locked in rocks and oil, another large part locked in trees and plants, and a tiny bit floating around in the atmosphere. You want to keep most of the carbon locked in solid materials - living or dead.
The thing is, if you release carbon from living matter, it eventually gets locked again in other living matter within a few years to a few decades (provided you don't log faster than you replant of course). If you release carbon from dead matter, it takes millions of years to get locked again in new dead matter.
So not burning anything is best, burning live plants is not great in the short term but okay in the long run, while burning fossil fuels is only okay over geological timescales.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 19 2021, @04:21AM
It doesn't take millions of years. 0.01% of all the carbon in the biosphere is locked away in limestone each year by shellfish. If it wasn't for volcanoes and oil seeps, all the carbon would be gone in 10,000 years.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:07PM (1 child)
I recently had a round with somebody on Twitter about this, who raised the separate issue that aside from the local pollutants from wood stoves and other home burning, there's methane. Initially I didn't think there was any methane, but it turns out there is. I think I was mistaken on this point because when discussing wood stove emissions everybody focuses on pm 2.5. Turns out that's a proxy for un-burned hydrocarbons which include CH4.
The reason I'm not feeling guilty is that my opponent in the debate hit me with "home burning is 45% of all CH4 from stationary sources in the US", and if you're a careful reader you might guess, as I did, that "stationary sources" is a small fraction of anthropogenic CH4 and most likely encompasses things that are far more dirty than wood stoves such as open burning.
In any event, fire has been a part of the forest here in NorCal since way before Europeans and to cycle back to the other point, they're happy to come after my wood stove while failing to approve fuel removal that might keep wild fires from getting to be the size of Rhode Island. That's no exaggeration. The Dixie Fire, currently burning, is about 960k acres putting it just short of the land+water area of RI. It already exceeded the land area of RI several weeks ago.
The AQI from these wildfires is atrocious, but they want to come after the wood stoves? It really does seem less about the environment and more about making it so people have to rely on the system.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:21PM
Possibly but I would hazard it's more along the lines of "somebody dooooo something"!111
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by mcgrew on Saturday September 18 2021, @03:20PM
That's what you get for voting single party. Wisdom says hiring a bartender because of his political party is stupid, and hiring a legislator for the party s/he belongs to is far more stupid.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @10:25PM
Rural burnoffs of old trees and bits around the farms are a regular feature in Clean Green New Zealand. Please don't let our rabid left-wing anti-farmer idiots see this. They have been making life almost untenable for farmers the past few years. It really looks like the govt agenda is to kill off food production and make us dependent on food imports.
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday September 19 2021, @12:16AM
Yeah, we’re similar. 13 acres, half Aussie eucalyptus bush. We have 5 separate bonfire spots to get rid of all the leaves from the fallen trees. Trunks become next year’s firewood. We’d have a compost heap the size of a semi trailer if we composted it all (plus the extra work). In spring (now), we’ve been burning lots of the fallen trees and bark on the ground to reduce fuel load for the incoming summer (aka bushfire season).
We do compost a fair bit of stuff but out here landowners all burn off, but nobody bats an eyelid.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:10PM (8 children)
If you read the text uncritically you come away with some hand-wringing about pollution, but when you engage in a dismantling of the author's privileged position and reinterpret the text in the social environment you can see where this leads; it is a clear strike against the alternative religious cultures by a catholic majority's chosen puppets. Instead of analysis directed at the energy budgets and polluting effects of the practices of roman colonialism, maintained over thousands of years of subjugated people's practices, they direct a knife right at the still-beating heart of the underground, counter-cultural revolutionary resistance latent in society today.
They should check their hegemonic privilege, decolonise their thinking and embrace the lived experiences of the underclasses that they seek to oppress instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:09PM
🤔 wtf I want a pagan bonfire ritual now
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:47PM (5 children)
You're trying to troll (and not doing very well), but you accidentally hit a kernel of truth in there: the disturbing parallels between the Roman Empire and modern-day neoliberal government/business practices, which are basically the same thing. The uniting factor is an unthinking, compulsive drive to control others, full stop, regardless of the social, political, financial, or environmental consequences.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @06:24PM
whatevs - can we burn it all down now???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @11:45PM (3 children)
oh really. you don't think it has anything to do with the republican tax cuts for the 1% and income inequality?
i guess we're talking about 2 different roman empires.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 19 2021, @02:51AM (2 children)
Neolliberalism is not left-wing and not liberal. Look it up.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 19 2021, @03:11AM (1 child)
oh good, because here i assumed that "neo" and "liberalism" actually meant what they normally do
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 19 2021, @04:03AM
Would heaven politics were so simple!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @10:28PM
Q: Why are elites so against tobacco? A: It's the last vestige of native culture.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Saturday September 18 2021, @04:50PM (1 child)
That isn't actually very large for a bonfire as far as airspace goes. If you've ever had a very small mishap while cooking you know a large kitchen gets INSTANTLY filled with smoke. When compared to an actual outdoor environment this is completely different.
If someone actually cared about the environment they could go after the heavy oil burning transport ships that produce more pollution than every car on earth and stop trying to screw with small rural landowners.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 18 2021, @07:18PM
Yeah, that one really gets to me for the stupidity. So-called "bunker oil" that the ships burn is the stuff that has been skimmed several times, all the useful stuff removed, and all that's left is polluting sludge. But, they're allowed to burn it at sea because there's no one there to witness or complain.
Maybe they could just pump that waste back into an empty oil well, instead of burning it at sea?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 18 2021, @05:08PM (1 child)
Leave the stuff over winter. That's your mulch!
So close. I live in a farm town, and the annual cleanup, and burns, if still needed (because it'll continue to compost in the warmer weather), are in the *spring*, by law. This is much friendlier to the environment.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday September 18 2021, @08:40PM
I have a back yard with a row of Turk's Bell Hibiscus along the property line. When it rains, that stuff seems to grow a foot a day. It was an enormous hassle to continually have to cut and haul that stuff out front for pickup, especially in temps over 90. I discovered that it breaks down fairly quickly, so now I cut it and leave it lay along the back. Tramping over it when I go back there helps break it down, and now I have a border of mulch around the hibiscus.