Over the years there has been a huge amount of speculation as to whether the popular patio heater damages the environment. Some people say that a patio heater is as bad for the environment as a 4×4 car, but is that true?

Due to increased pressure from campaigners and the government, some big names such as B&Q and Wyvale Garden Centre have stopped stocking the patio heaters. This has caused a lot of bad press to be targeted at the common patio heater.

This has resulted in many people, when they hear about patio heaters, they believe they are terrible machines for CO2. However, back in 2008 when the EU might have banned patio heaters, Dr Eric Johnson from the United Nations argued against the case.

Dr Johnson said how the Government had found that overall, patio heaters contribute 22,200 tons of CO2 each year. This figure only results to 0.002% of the overall total of CO2 emitted.

For use of comparision, he said that every year 4.6 million tons of CO2 is released from the use of televisions and it would take 5 patio heaters to match the same CO2 released by one TV.

Regardless of those figures, there is still wide spread hate of patio heaters, however, some business owners consider patio heaters vital. Many pub owners will argue that since the smoking ban, a patio heater has become vital for keeping business.

The reason why the public consider these heaters bad is because they are used as a luxury. However, during the summer months, many people use a portable air conditioner or dehumidifiers, but these machine don’t get bad press. Plus, many people just don’t think that if patio heaters were banned then more people would just use other methods such as air conditioners.

There will always be people around to complain about these machines, no doubt they don’t kick up a fuss about the benefits.