The complete banning of bonfires coupled with a program of waste collection by our Council is a good move, providing that composting will be done properly. Let's do our bit in Lions Bay and set an example for Howe Sound!  

The following article is based on a Letter to the Editor written in the February 2005 edition of the Seagull.  Impetus for that Letter came about because of a plan to burn very large amounts wood waste from highway clearing activity in our Brunswick pit area.

 

Canada claims "the environment" as one of our top 10 matters of public concern, despite imposing the third largest "ecological footprint" in the world. Fortunately there are regulatory Fire Bylaws to control burning for many reasons.  These reasons include safety, protection of health, protection of the atmospheric and aquatic environments, and protection of the aesthetic environment. Put simply, the burning of biomass and fossil fuels causes air pollution, and air pollution knows no boundaries. "Air pollution makes us sick, increases the cost of living, hurts the economy, hurts the environment in many ways". Pollutants in the air readily moves to other places, witness the presence of toxins in vegetation, animals and fish far removed from polluting sources Examples include radio-iodine from Chernobyl in Canadian milk, DDT in Arctic caribou herds, cotton weevil insecticide from the southern States in Canadian lake fish, atmospheric haze (particulates) from forest burning in Asia.

 

The inefficient burning of wood produces many undesirable beasties: (i) inorganic metal oxides; (ii) volatile inorganic gases including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulphur; (iii) non-polar VOCs (volatile organic compounds); (iv) polar VOCs; (v) PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons; and (vi) particulates. Of the 40 or so of these compounds that have been chemically identified, 17 are on the U.S. EPA list of greatest concern, 14 are carcinogens, 6 are poisonous to lung cells and 4 are co-carcinogens.

 

The roles of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide as radiation absorbers and contributors to global warming and potential climate change are well known. Many of the VOCs are photochemically active, reacting in sunlight to produce peroxy-organics, ozone and the brown nitrogen dioxide smog seen over Vancouver on sunny days. These are the substances that contribute to respiratory health problems.

 

Polar VOCs and PAHs aggregate into tiny droplets and adhere to ash, soot and dust particles, forming the blue haze that destroys the views that we would like to enjoy. Worse, the smallest of those particulates (PM2.5) are inhalable into the deepest parts of the lungs and are most hazardous to the very young, the elderly and those with respiratory difficulties. These very small particles can remain suspended in the atmosphere for a long time, to be precipitated far from the source, potentially compromising the quality of vegetation (and vegetables that we eat) and potable water supplies.

 

The burning of wood in inefficient open bonfires simply converts one form of trash into another form (trash in the atmosphere), without capturing any of the benefits derivable from uses of dry wood for home heating in efficient wood-burning stoves, or from wood chips or wood compost applications in landscaping, soil remediation, forest renewal, horticulture and wetland renewal. The complete banning of bonfires coupled with a program of waste collection by our Council is a good move, providing that composting will be done properly. Let's do our bit in Lions Bay and set an example for Howe Sound!