Defra paid for wood burner ads while funding cancer risk campaign
The government has paid Instagram influencers for adverts about wood burners while simultaneously funding councils to warn that the same stoves risk cancer, The Times can reveal.
Pollution from wood-burning stoves surged 124 per cent between 2011 and 2021 as middle class households bought them as lifestyle choices. The appliances now account for more than a fifth of the most harmful type of pollution, PM2.5, prompting calls for health labels on stoves.
However, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been funding social media influencers this winter to run videos urging people to burn drier wood, rather than using them less or not at all.
In a video shared with her 76,000 Instagram followers, Cate St Hill said: “I’ve been getting
