Are wood burning stoves clean and environmentally friendly?

Recently, the regulations against polluting wood burning stoves have tightened. The Environmental Protection Agency has set out regulations about how much pollution a wood burning appliance can emit. The reason behind this is that, as part of the combustion process, the smoke from a wood burning fire contains harmful gases and particles. Prior to the regulations being in force, typical wood burning stoves emitted 70-80 grams of particle pollution every hour. Modern non-catalytic stoves will emit less than 4.5 grams of particle pollution an hour. Catalytic stoves will emit less than 3 grams an hour. Both types comply with the regulations.