Smoke from wood burning fire this year

[Denton]

We have lived in Gunlukbasi for over 10 years and never seen such bad smoke at night or in the morning from,  wood burning stoves.  It was worse on the nights when the temperature dropped to Zero or below.  Is there any smokeless fuel people could burn and is there anything the Council can do to sort this problem - we will be like Beijing soon.

[jackstee]

I burn wood and don't get any smoke.
You will probably find they are burning the poor quality coal

[JohnF]

is there anything the Council can do to sort this problem

Well, I suppose the council could pay folks utility bills...  then they could afford to use electricity to heat their homes, as opposed to cheap wood and coal - or would you rather they just banned them from having the choice between freezing or creating a bit of smog for a couple of months?

JF

[KKOB]

As Jackstee says, it's more than likely that most households in Fethiye are burning the cheap, low quality coal, not wood.

is there anything the Council can do to sort this problem

Why don't go and ask the council ?

[Colwyn]

There isn't a local election coming up is there? I recall going to Istanbul one February and you could see the air you were breathing as well as smelling and tasting it. I asked a Turkish colleague about this and he told me that there was an election coming up and the AKP had "sweetened" the poorer part of the electorate by handing out free "brown coal" - i.e. lignite; a cheap, smelly, smokey form of coal of which Turkey has quite a lot. So all the home fires were burning!

I don't blame either the poor people for burning the coal nor even the politicians for "bribing" the electorate - our politicians all do it at election time; we just have different methods (e.g. state pensioners get £100 each, or £200 per household, for their winter fuel). I merely offer it as an explanation of why the air was so bad back then in Istanbul.