22 January 2019

Not everyone thinks about firewood during balmy summer days, but now is the best time to get hot deals – wood is generally cheaper at this time of the year, and getting it early gives you more time to stack and dry it before you actually need it.

Waikato Regional Council is giving Tokoroa residents an extra incentive to gather firewood early this year by running a creative wood stacking competition.

Entrants, who must live or own property in the Tokoroa area, can upload one or more photos of their creative stack to the comments section of a post about the competition on the regional council’s Facebook page. The winners will be determined by public vote – the highest number of likes, hearts and other emoticons – for a collective prize pack of $600 worth of fire wood vouchers.

“Timber town Tokoroa is known for being very crafty with wood, so I’m very excited to see how creative our locals can get with their stacking,” says South Waikato District Council Mayor Jenny Shattock.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on the regional council’s Facebook page and make sure I like the stacks I love the most.”

Waikato Regional Council education team leader Amy Satterfield says while the competition is designed as a bit of fun, there is a serious message behind it.

“Tokoroa is one of the areas in the Waikato where the air can become so dirty in winter it’s a risk to health and wellbeing,” says Ms Satterfield.

Home heating, especially the use of old wood burners and wet wood, is the main cause of PM10 pollution. The resulting fine particles are small enough to get into your lungs and can cause serious health problems, especially for young children, the elderly and asthmatics.

There are three things we can do to keep the air clean while keeping our homes warm: burn good dry wood, be smart about how we use and maintain wood burners and upgrade your old wood burner to a clean heating appliance. Learn more on waikatoregion.govt.nz/warm-homes-clean-air.

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