Open for consultation until 5pm, Sunday 14 June 2026. Add your comments to the draft plan, or email your submission to contactus@launceston.tas.gov.au. Phone 03 6323 3000 for further information. Some important issues are discussed below. For even more info, read the full AAQG submission & appendices
1. Good policies must be based on good information
Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, special air quality adviser at the UK Royal College of Physicians wrote [1] about wood burning on Clean Air Night that it “it should force us to confront an uncomfortable truth, that one of the UK’s most damaging sources of air pollution comes from our own homes ...
“Our understanding of how air pollution harms health has changed fundamentally over the past decade. It is no longer confined to the lungs. Exposure to PM2.5 increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and diabetes. It impairs lung and brain development in children and is increasingly linked to cognitive decline and dementia in later life. Exposure before birth can influence health across the entire life course. Air pollution also worsens existing health inequalities. As the RCP’s report makes clear, children, older people, people with existing conditions or worse health generally and those living in more deprived or densely populated communities are disproportionately harmed.
“Crucially, there is no safe level of air pollution: it harms every organ in the human body even at the lowest concentrations.
“There is an urgent need to address air pollution emissions from wood burning. Smoke from domestic wood burning is particularly concerning because the smoke does not stay indoors or within property boundaries. In built-up areas, emissions from a single stove can significantly degrade local air quality, exposing neighbours to pollution they have no control over. Even modern 'ecodesign' stoves emit substantially more PM2.5 than homes that do not burn solid fuel at all.
“... Awareness of the specific health harms linked to PM2.5 remains low – polling commissioned by the RCP shows that a third of adults do not believe air pollution poses a health risk at all and just 17% knew about the links with dementia. Many people are unaware that domestic wood burning contributes to air pollution.”
To help solve this problem, the UK Government wants to introduce mandatory health warnings on wood heaters and Prof. Holgate recommends that the stoves should be phased out in UK cities because of the substantial adverse health impacts.
2. Launceston’s previous success was based on good information; it reduced wintertime respiratory deaths by 28% and cardiovascular deaths by 20%
Effective messages about the health damage from wood heater pollution reduced wood heater use in Launceston (from 66% to 30% of households) and deaths in winter from respiratory disease by 28% and cardiovascular disease by 20%. The health messages and ‘Smoke gets in your eyes’ videos were so effective that more than 2,300 households accepted a small $500 subsidy to replace their wood heater with less polluting heating and another 2,000 did so entirely at their own expense.
3. Current wood heater users lack good information
Wood smoke contains the same and similar toxins to cigarette smoke and is associated with the same health problems – heart attacks and strokes, lung diseases and cancers, which are all listed about, as well as several other unwelcome problems such as cognitive decline and dementia.
For cigarettes, these health impacts were considered so serious that legislation was introduced to protect non-smokers, including pregnant women and children, from the smoke and the toxins it contains, especially the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH, many of which are known human carcinogens).
It is therefore fitting to ask how many cigarettes would need to be smoked to emit the same amount of carcinogens as in the PAH emitted by burning wood in a modern Australian wood heater. Most wood heater users will be surprised to learn that, in terms of BaP-equivalents (the standard way to quantify the cancer-causing impact of different PAH), burning 10 kg hardwood produces as many toxins as in the smoke of over 200,000 cigarettes.
Only 30% of respondents to the community feedback survey did not use wood heating and only 40% respondents agreed that wood smoke has a negative effect on health. Given the strong evidence from Launceston that reducing wood smoke reduced wintertime deaths from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (by 28% and 20%) respectively, it seems likely that most of the 30% not using wood heating would agree that wood smoke has a negative effect on health. That leaves 10% out of the remaining 70%, i.e. only 14% of wood heater users believing that wood smoke is harmful.
Further analysis of the survey data is therefore required to quantify the proportions who believe that wood smoke has a negative impact on health according the whether they do not use wood heating, whether they plan to remove or replace it due to environmental or health concerns, whether they use it for occasional heater, or as main heat.
The fact that the vast majority of current wood heater users don’t believe wood smoke has a negative effect on health raises the question of how many wood heater users would choose alternatives if they knew and understood the risks to their own health, the health of their neighbours, and that efficient heater-air-conditioners can maintain a comfortable temperature with lower running costs than buying firewood.
4. Informed communities
If people were asked about a new product that:
lacks a safe standard to protect our health
despite UK research showing that using a wood burner tripled harmful indoor pollution, isn’t tested for emissions inside our homes
emits toxic particles able to enter our homes when all doors and windows are shut and able to penetrate the deepest recesses of our lungs, where they enter the bloodstream and cause harm throughout the body, including increasing the risk of some cancers
increases the risk of heart and lung diseases, strokes, dementia, asthma attacks
increases the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, causes changes in cognitive abilities and poorer learning outcomes in children
if installed in only one home per hectare, adds 7% to the risk that a child under 3 will need hospital emergency treatment for all causes except accidental injury
emits particles that, in toxicity testing, were found to cause 12 to 30 times as many tumours in mice and mutations in bacteria as the same amount of cigarette smoke with other studies showing that the chemicals in wood smoke reduce our lungs’ ability to fight infection
when burning 10 kg hardwood produces as many toxins as in the smoke of over 200,000 cigarettes
if used for more than 30 days per year, increases in the risk of women developing lung cancer by 68% and also increases the risk of breast cancer
will likely increase indoor pollution similar to the results of a Swedish study of PAH in wood burning homes that found cancer potency (sum of BaP equivalents) was significantly higher (about 4 times) in the wood-burning homes compared to reference homes
Over next 20 years (the critical period if we are to keep global warming well below 2 degrees and reduce the risk of passing disastrous climate tipping points) the average wood heater in Sydney will cause more global warming than gas central heating 23 similar houses
UK special adviser on air quality at the UK Royal College of Physicians Professor Sir Stephen Holgate advised that Clean Air Night should mark the moment we finally act on wood burning because PM2.5 exposure, including the substantial proportion from burning wood, “increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and diabetes. It impairs lung and brain development in children and is increasingly linked to cognitive decline and dementia in later life. Exposure before birth can influence health across the entire life course.
Professor Sir Stephen Holgate also advised there is no safe level of air pollution: it harms every organ in the human body even at the lowest concentrations.
they would NOT want to buy this unsafe polluting product if they knew there were affordable, safe alternatives
5. Unrepresentative survey fuelled by industry advertising and misinformation
An interview with Prof Fay Johnston explained that “we know in Launceston the rate of wood heater ownership and use is between 25 and 30 per cent”, implying that the online survey is not representative of the population, because 70% of respondents had a wood heater or open fireplace in their residence and of those 77% use them as their primary source of heating over winter.
One possible reason for the unrepresentative nature of the survey could be lobbying by the wood heating industry, including by multiple Facebook ads by the AHHA, the peak wood heating industry lobby that cost many thousands of dollars. The ads make the incorrect claim that new wood heaters are cleaner than older models, despite the fact there is no safe standard for wood heaters and on 30 July 2025, Professor Fay Johnston, an internationally recognised expert in environmental health, stated on ABC Radio National that the current standard is “not fit for purpose. Indeed, tests of heaters installed in people’s homes show they are almost as polluting as the ones in use 20 years ago.
6. Creating the best possible Plan
The draft Plan includes many useful actions. It could, however, be much more effective with a few small changes.
Action 1 – Education and Community Engagement
Education should focus on health. Wood heater users who don’t know and understand the health impacts have no reason to operate their heaters carefully to minimize smoke, let alone switch to cleaner heating. The problem is that, as noted above, Council’s 25 March to 12 April 2026 Community survey suggests that the vast majority of wood heater users do not believe that wood smoke has a negative effect on health. If this is not addressed to the maximum possible extent, as a matter of extreme urgency, the effectiveness of the Plan will be greatly diminished.
Education should aim to repeat Launceston’s previous successful programs that had a focus on health and reducing wood heater use. The 30 second videos on health and ‘Smoke gets in your eyes’ were so effective that more than 2,300 households accepted a small $500 subsidy to replace their wood heaters with less polluting heating and another 2,000 did so entirely at their own expense.
Since then, “wood smoke educational material has generally focussed on wood heater operation” (page 13 of the draft Plan). This may give the false impression that correctly-operated wood heaters are not a problem. As Prof Fay Johnston explains in an interview with ABC Tasmania: “The only evidence we've got in the literature for improving air quality is actually reducing the prevalence of wood heaters in that community”.
The difficulty is that real-world emissions of wood heaters satisfying the current Australian Standard are almost as polluting as the ones in use 20 years ago, according to measurements in New Zealand (NZ). Education messages should therefore be simple: wood smoke is harmful. Burning 10 kg hardwood produces as many toxins as in the smoke of over 200,000 cigarettes. Isn’t it time you gave up smoking?
Education needs careful research to be effective. With only 40% of respondents to the community survey agreeing that wood smoke has a negative effect on health, current education programs are clearly ineffective. Careful research will therefore be needed to develop and evaluate programs that aim to increase awareness and understanding by all wood heater users that wood smoke affects every organ in the body, that it increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and diabetes. It impairs lung and brain development in children and is increasingly linked to cognitive decline and dementia in later life and that exposure before birth can influence health across the entire life course.
Research into effective education will be a vital part of the nationally coordinated action on woodfire smoke that Asthma Australia called for In May 2026. Launceston should therefore review the effective messages developed two decades ago and find out how to make them heard and understood by the current generation of wood heater users. Council should work with organisations such as Asthma Australia, Dementia Australia, the Cancer Council, the Heart Foundation, Lung Foundation, Doctors for the Environment Australia, the Australian Medical Association, the Centre for Safe Air and local councils in Tasmania and on the mainland to aim for the widest possible audience for these important health messages. Breathing wood smoke increases the risk of all five leading causes of death in Australia – dementia, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Everyone's health will remain at risk until there is widespread understanding of these important facts.
Education must be consistent with regulation. The untrue belief of wood heater users that wood smoke has no negative effects on health has been reinforced by regulatory inaction, a failure to protect residents suffering health damage from other people’s pollution, a wood heater standard that’s not fit-for-purpose and misinformation from the profit-driven wood heating industry. Many of these issues can be addressed with minor changes to the Plan that will not cause any major inconvenience.
Most important of all is Action 5 for a bylaw not to permit the installation of new wood heaters and Point-of-Sale removal of wood heaters and open fireplaces. In the most recent research from New Zealand, the estimated health costs of indoor pollution from a ULEB amounts to $1,823 pre year and outdoor pollution $3,181, i.e. a total economic cost of more than NZ$5,000 per ULEB pre year, which most people would consider unacceptable.
Residents submitting notifications to install a wood heater need appropriate education when they submit the notification. Section 4 'Informed Communities' notes that most residents would NOT want to install an unsafe product. Even before any bylaws are implemented, residents wishing to install wood heaters should be informed about the potential health damage, as should all neighbours likely to be affected by the smoke.
Education must demonstrate that alternatives are clean, convenient, affordable and have lower running costs than buying firewood. When Christchurch’s Clean Heat Project replaced wood heating in 1,973 households with improved insulation (where needed) and an efficient reverse cycle air-conditioner, the average increase in electricity use was just 1%. Electricity consumption decreased in households that removed open fires, but increased by 8-10% in households that replaced free-standing wood-heaters. Some participants reported decreased electricity use because they no longer used resistive heating in preference to lighting the woodburner for short term heat.
Collating case-studies of residents who don’t use wood heating but have warm, comfortable homes at the flick of a switch, or finger press on a remote app to turn on the heating an hour before arriving home, will help all residents understand that there are low-cost, healthy alternatives.
Education should counter industry misinformation and slick advertising campaigns. Slick advertising slogans by the wood heating industry such as ‘Protect your right to light’ should be countered by health messaging about protecting children’s right to clean air and the right of elderly citizens to be protected from harmful pollution.
These 17 examples of incorrect and misleading information from the wood heating industry highlight the need for education programs to counter the misinformation used to further their profits. If, as indicated on page 14 of the Plan, council engages with wood heater and firewood retailers to provide educational resources to distribute to their customers, those resources must include compelling and convincing health information to motivate readers to operate heaters correctly, warn that careless operation can endanger the health of nearby residents as well as those using the heater, and draw attention to the financial incentives available for switching to much cleaner heating.
Action 2 – Proposed financial incentives inadequate
The Plan reports that the estimated annual health cost associated with a single wood heater in Tasmania is $4,232. Small rebates of $1000 to remove a wood heater and install clean heating are not commensurate with the benefits realised when residents switch to clean, efficient, electric heating. This again serves leads wood heater owners to believe that wood smoke can't be particularly harmful, e.g. compared to cigarette smoke. In fact, the opposite is true. Burning 10 kg hardwood produces as many toxins as in the smoke of over 200,000 cigarettes. If funding is an issue, consider a carrot-and-stick approach of a small levy on wood heater users to provide a fairer subsidy to reward residents who do the right thing and switch to clean, efficient, electric heating that we now know has lower costs then buying firewood. There's widespread public acceptance of taxes on cigarettes. It seems only fair to tax an activity that creates as many toxins as in the smoke from 200,000 cigarettes from burning just 10 kg of wood.
Action 3 - Air Quality Monitoring
Actions 3.9 'Advocate for Australia and Tasmania to implement a Human Rights Act that includes clean air' and 3.10 'Advocate for air pollution, including smoke, to be treated as a health issue and not an environmental / pollution issue" are urgent as should commence immediately and continue until both 3.9 and 3.10 have been achieved.
Low-cost monitoring, calibrated for wood smoke, should also be provided to residents concerned about the impact of other people's smoke pollution on their health. Council should be obliged to act when monitoring shows unhealthy pollution and assist with collecting the necessary evidence for infringement notices if monitoring does not reduce to a level that's unlikely to cause health damage within a couple of weeks.
In Tasmania, researchers noted the main cause of elevated PM2.5 is biomass smoke from wood heaters during winter and bushfires and planned burns at other times of the year. Hospital admissions for heart failure (HF, the leading cause of hospitalisation for adults aged over 65 years) started to increase in Tasmania as soon as PM2.5 exceeded 4 ug/m3, a tiny fraction of the WHO PM2.5 air quality guideline of 15 ug/m3. The researchers also noted that there are more HF incidences and readmissions in winter in Tasmania than other seasons. The Domestic Wood Smoke Plan goal should therefore go much further than meeting the WHO PN2.5 Guideline and aim for safe levels of pollution - no more than 4 ug/m3 daily average - throughout the winter. The only permitted exceedances should be for out-of-control bushfires.
Action 4 - Proactive regulatory measures and regulatory education
The proposed actions lack the most important regulatory measure of all - assisting residents who are concerned about the impact of other people's smoke on their health. As noted above, low-cost monitoring, calibrated for wood smoke, should also be provided to residents concerned about the impact of other people's smoke pollution on their health. Council should be obliged to act when monitoring shows unhealthy pollution and assist with collecting the necessary evidence for infringement notices if monitoring does not reduce to a level that's unlikely to cause health damage within a couple of weeks.
Action 5 - Investigate and develop a By-law
Most important of all is Action 5 for a bylaw not to permit the installation of new wood heaters and the Point-of-Sale removal of wood heaters and open fireplaces. In the most recent research from New Zealand, the estimated health costs of indoor pollution from a ULEB amounts to $1,823 pre year and outdoor pollution $3,181, i.e. a total economic cost of more than NZ$5,000 per ULEB per year, which most people would consider unacceptable.