Matches or lighters?

I have often wondered about the most sustainable way to (easily) light a fire. My ponderings are usually limited to matches or lighters, as those are my common choices. Is it more sustainable to re-fill a cigarette lighter (either one of the plastic ones or a Zippo) or to keep buying new boxes of matches?

The lighter fuel is butane which, I believe, is manufactured from natural gas (a fossil fuel). The tip of matches used to be pretty unpleasant and workers in Victorian match factories were notoriously unhealthy due to their prolonged exposure to phosphorus. I know that the formula for modern, safety matches is a little different, and I confess that I'm not sure how phosphorus is acquired (it's an element so presumably via some chemical extraction or mining operation), but I do wonder at the footprint of that operation too. A further concern with matches is the providence of the timber being used: I'd imagine it is purchased from the cheapest bidder, namely some deforestation effort in Indonesia or equivalent.

I wonder, does anyone have any thoughts? It may be that a magnesium-coated firestick is the best answer (but that also comes with its own questions). Maybe I should be learning to use a flint and steel!

I am really surprised that this topic has not been brought up more often.

Clearly, matches are biodegradable and recyclable

They will not add to the already mountains of waste like plastic lighters.

And of course, refillable lighters like the kind that use butane or lighter fluid are better than the disposable ones.

I really don't know the answer regarding those though to me matches are still the better choice.

Both are necessary evils and serve a purpose.

Or we all could learn to light a fire like these:

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Fire-Without-Matches-or-a-Lighter

i think flint& steel or ferrorod or friction or other non-petroleum, non-match methods are probably the most sustainable. agree with anne that disposable plastic lighters are probably the least good of the options you mention. i don’t know enough about the sourcing of the combustible part of matches to really say, but certainly the wood or cardboard parts are biodegradable.

I use matches indoors where it can be guaranteed to stay dry, but a pizo-electric lighter when I'm working outdoors. NO refillable, but one light lasts me years of firelighting.

However, I think the actual ignition source is much less significant than what you use as your initial tinder. I confess to using commercial firelighter briquettes, because I value the convenience. However, one single pack of briquettes has far more fossil fuel contained in it than any disposable lighter. But in either situation, moving to burning wood from fossil fuels represents a huge beneficial change. Once you have done that step you would probably be better served looking at other ways to reduce fossil fuel usage than attempting to remove lighters/matches from the equation.

What are you lighting on fire?
A lighter and flint or ferro rods are water proof, a butane lighter is reliable and instant. There are electric lighter now that are basically mini stun-guns with arcing electrodes, no plastic waste. A Zippo can be filled with kerosene or lamp oil. They make water proof matches, more resistant than proof, and wind proof matches that have longer phosphor sections but they are quite expensive compared to a kitchen match.
I always carry a mini-bic in my pocket. I also carry an antique vesta in my watch pocket with matches. If I'm going into the woods I always carry both and my rain gear/day pack have  ferro rod zipper pulls.
I don't heat with wood any more but when I did we used a vintage Cape Codder fire starter, minimal kindling, no need for paper, no need to reach inside the fire box.  A Zippo if you're concerned about plastic, matches if you can keep them dry, a ferro rod because they are way easier than flint and steel, flint and steel is tried and true but unless you play with them often not immediate.

we've done these calculations here recently- matches are made here in our city using reforested wood, packaged in paper, that works for me.
(old matchmaking used white phosphorus, which was horribly toxic, modern process uses red phosphorus)

Michael Cox wrote:But in either situation, moving to burning wood from fossil fuels represents a huge beneficial change. Once you have done that step you would probably be better served looking at other ways to reduce fossil fuel usage than attempting to remove lighters/matches from the equation.

I agree. While trying to reduce impact is a process of constant adjustment, it's important to keep the big picture in mind (and not worry how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, haha).

When I had a wood stove, I mostly used tiny pieces of commercial firestarter and a refillable BBQ lighter. This was fast and reliable, encouraging use of the stove instead of just bumping up the thermostat on the natural gas furnace. When I'm in the yard, there is always a Bic lighter in my pocket; I have never found a refillable butane lighter that is reliable.

For ignition sources, I'm wondering if the lowest impact could be paper matches. People tend to dismiss them because they're tiny and short burning. There's a trick to it: Use two (or more) at a time, and cut or tear all the way down to the bottom of the pack. Now you have a match of reasonable size that you can hold on to.

I miss my old wood stove.

Some great replies here, thanks all.

To add some context to my question: most plastic lighters here in the UK can be refilled - most people don't bother, but they can be! I have a huge number of them as I pick them up when I find them and, as long as they still have a little gas in, I'll take them home. I'm about to move to a much more rural location though so my supply may well dry up!

I am always burning wood and I use waste newspaper, or foraged tinder (bullrush, for instance). Currently our boiler uses natural gas (very common in Wales, that or oil) but when we build our house we will heat everything using coppiced wood or excess solar. At the moment we heat our house, mostly, using a wood stove.

I didn't know that white phosphor was the toxic component in old matches so it is good to know that manufacturers have transitioned. I think I will look into finding a local-ish, or at least trustworthy supplier of matches that use well managed woodland.

As I'm burning wood without any firelighter, I don't think the piezo lighter will work very easily. I have used ferro-rod when working with bullrush tinder, it's a faff but it works fine. I'm not convinced that the way we mine magnesium is particularly ethical though! More research needed...

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Michael Cox wrote:But in either situation, moving to burning wood from fossil fuels represents a huge beneficial change. Once you have done that step you would probably be better served looking at other ways to reduce fossil fuel usage than attempting to remove lighters/matches from the equation.

I agree. While trying to reduce impact is a process of constant adjustment, it's important to keep the big picture in mind (and not worry how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, haha).

I totally agree with all of the above. I understand the privilege in me questioning the best choice in, what is undoubtedly, such a minor portion of someone's footprint. I am fortunate enough to be in a position where I am talking about burning wood and, as the thought has cropped up often in my mind, I thought that I would share and see what others here think

If sustainable means 'no use of non renewable disposable materials', then...

- Magnifying glass. It's fragile and not easy, but it does not decay with use. Only works with full sun, though.
- Bow drill. Bulky and slow, but it's completely made or renewable materials.
- Embers. They can be preserved in ashes to be used the next day, saving the effort of lighting the flame again.

If you consider iron and flint a renewable resource because we are going to use it in tiny amounts and we can't possibly deplete it in geological ages, then
- Flint and steel. The spark is made of the iron, so the flint stone is not consumed.

If you are willing to use non renewable minerals as long as they are abundant, then
- Matches
- Metal lighters

So, the 'most' sustainable of them all I think it's the bow drill. It only requires natural fibers, you don't need an industrial society to produce it and, while it's not fast, it's not too hard to start a flame.

Luke Mitchell wrote:

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

Michael Cox wrote:But in either situation, moving to burning wood from fossil fuels represents a huge beneficial change. Once you have done that step you would probably be better served looking at other ways to reduce fossil fuel usage than attempting to remove lighters/matches from the equation.

I agree. While trying to reduce impact is a process of constant adjustment, it's important to keep the big picture in mind (and not worry how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, haha).

I totally agree with all of the above. I understand the privilege in me questioning the best choice in, what is undoubtedly, such a minor portion of someone's footprint. I am fortunate enough to be in a position where I am talking about burning wood and, as the thought has cropped up often in my mind, I thought that I would share and see what others here think

No criticism intended. We often discuss angels dancing. It leads us down interesting paths.

Abraham Palma wrote:If you consider iron and flint a renewable resource because we are going to use it in tiny amounts and we can't possibly deplete it in geological ages, then
- Flint and steel. The spark is made of the iron, so the flint stone is not consumed.

I played with traditional flint and steel during my bushcrafting days (not to be confused with the engineered flint sticks in the stores). The spark is very light and short lived, so the tinder is critical. The best I found was fuzz from cattail heads, with a bit of dry grass and shredded inner poplar bark. It  certainly teaches you to be meticulous in your fire-making preparations. Empty Bic lighters may be a good way to experiment with this for free; just remove the metal cowling.

as long as we’ve veered slightly to good tinders, i’d like to make sure birch bark, fatwood, and a nice homemade charcloth get their mentions. cattail fluff is a good one for sure.

Cattail and Bullrush seem to be synonymous. Nice to know we are all on the same wavelength there.

Interesting too to know that traditional flint and steel can be difficult. I shouldn't be surprised, given how we have moved away from it.

For me it's matches day to day but a bic lighter when it counts.

A quirky aside: I find that wooden matches these days do not store worth a darn. Even kept dry, the heads start to crumble. Paper matches, on the other hand, seem to remain viable for decades; I found some from the '80s in a drawer and they still work.

Luke Mitchell wrote:Interesting too to know that traditional flint and steel can be difficult. I shouldn't be surprised, given how we have moved away from it.

It's tricky in the field, because the tinder has to be just right and dead dry, and the slightest breeze will mess with it all. I imagine it would be easier indoors in a wood stove; you could have a series of tin cans with tinder pre-made and ready to go, and everything would stay dry.

Luke Mitchell wrote:Cattail and Bullrush seem to be synonymous. Nice to know we are all on the same wavelength there.

just for clarity’s sake, your u.k. bulrush or reedmace is the same as our cattails (Typha genus) in north america…but in the u.s. at least, we call a different group of water plants bulrush (Scirpus genus).

Dimly remembered: "Grasses have joints, rushes are round, and sedges have edges."

Our common cattail certainly has an edge, but I'm not sure it's a sedge. My botany-fu is not strong. Help a bro out, will ya?

yet another different family, they’re all a little different. grasses are family Poaceae, which is a huge family and includes reeds, which you don’t mention. rushes are Juncaceae. sedges are Cyperaceae. cattails are Typhaceae, their own little family. i guess we’ve got to come up with a new mnemonic to add to your list. maybe something better than ‘cattails get those little sausages up top’?

I am open to expanded mnemonics; this way lies wisdom.

what is this item

vintage Cape Codder fire starter,

please

Robert Ray, is this like the Cape Codder fire starter?

https://www.amazon.com/Georgetown-Pottery-Firelighter-Soapstone-Fireplace/dp/B07Z3ZBFST?th=1

Re Cape Cod firestarter: I wonder if it would work with rancid cooking oil or used cooking fat. I must try this with discarded BBQ lava rock. (The videos I've seen appear to use lamp oil/kerosene. I wonder what they used before that -- fish oil? whale oil?)

Anne, yes that would be a Cape Codder. The one I have is made of metal though and think it might be safer than ceramic. Originally used whale oil I've been told. A little unnerving sometimes when you put the wand back into the reservoir and flames up but it snuffs out once you seat the lid.

I try to relight from embers, but I do have a stash of wooden matches next to our fire for when it's gone cold. I'll use matches or lighters for the candles - since I seem to have a lot of old plastic lighters rattling around the house. I haven't bought one in ages.

Historically, when starting a fire required more effort, our ancestors used embers to relight, even when on the move. They carried embers with them.

Robert Ray wrote:Anne, yes that would be a Cape Codder. The one I have is made of metal though and think it might be safer than ceramic. Originally used whale oil I've been told. A little unnerving sometimes when you put the wand back into the reservoir and flames up but it snuffs out once you seat the lid.

OK, so what starts the flame on a Cape Codder? Are you using a match, or are you counting on there being a few embers and the Cape Codder just speeds up the quantity of heat and flame?

I think it would take a match or ember to start a Cape Codder. It uses some form of lamp oil. I'm not sure a traditional flint and steel would do it, but a modern metal match would have a good chance.

I used a lighter, but the addition of a striker for a ferro rod would be a simple addition to the shaft.  In fact that would be a great addition to it.

These lighters are designed to light a fire with no kindling needed — a relief when the snows of winter bury your woodpile. They were very popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I believe similar ones are still made. The set consists of a lidded pitcher, an underplate and a pumice- or ceramic-tipped wand.

The pitcher would be filled with whale oil or kerosene. The porous volcanic pumice or unglazed ceramic end of the wand would be left to soak in the pitcher, absorbing fuel like a sponge. When you wanted to light your stove or fireplace, you would remove the wand and hold a match to the saturated stone. The fuel-soaked stone would light easily and burn for about 10 minutes. You’d simply stick the torchlike wand under your wood and wait for the wood to ignite.

I’ve read conflicting accounts of what’s done next. One camp says remove the still-burning wand and submerge it back into the pitcher. Close the lid and the flame will be smothered. The other camp recommends removing the wand once your fire is going and leaving it on the underplate to burn out and cool. Either way, the stones can be reused for years before they lose the porosity. Then the stones are easily replaced.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/06/29/whats-it-worth-cape-cod-fire-lighter/

I think we all learned a little bit of history here today.

My partner has been frantically crafting birchbark pots to sell her fancy amaryllis at the local craft fair, so I have handfulls of thin, shredded birch bark to restart the fire in our big community woodstove every morning.

Today the embers were cold enough that I knew there'd be a lot of smoke if I tried to blow a flame, so I used a bic someone had thoughtfully jammed in the match holder. (Otherwise I've been using up old boxes of poor quality redbird and t!uch matches [PRO TIP: light a birthday candle fast before it gutters out].)

Once a week or so I messily split birch logs eight at a time into 1-2" kindling with a bungee cord and a maul (do a youtube search if that sounds confusing). Two of these go draw-wise into the firebox with aforesaid massive handful of bark strips, then two larger logs balance on top -- with maybe a couple more short sticks of birch between layers for stability. It's important that air can flow between the logs right to the back of the box.

Today instead of hardwood for the larger logs I used a hacked up knotty chunk of birch that had resisted the maul. One touch from the bic sent the firebox up in a not-so-slow explosion that had the giant cast iron hot enough to boil water in minutes. Basically it formed a temporary rocket stove with all surfaces on fire and a sucking vortex of flame through the middle.

Interestingly enough, intact birch bark seems to resist fire on a whole limb: birch branches make lousy tinder in my experience unless you split them. My theory is that whatever flammable gas it gives off burns so fast that it creates an envelope around the whole branch that keeps the rest of the bark and wood from igniting.

This can be a complex topic if dived into deep enough. I use a normal Bic lighter it is claimed that one is good for 3000-4500 2 second lights per lighter. Yes it is a plastic item that I would like to stay away from but matches have downsides too. The size it takes to transport 3000 matches is quite significantly more than a lighter, you could fit well over a dozen if not 2 dozen lighters in the same space. And the boxes of matches are wrapped in plastic themselves. And a little bit of research told me that white phosphorus is mined and then put through a chemical process to make it usable. I wouldn't be surprised if a carbon footprint study was done on each that the lighter creates less of a foot print.

The most sustainable solution would probably be a fire piston or magnesium & flint, but mining is still involved in those solutions.

Personally, I use a Djeep lighter, but also have a couple of boxes of "green" kitchen matches.  I'm a big fan of the Djeep brand lighters, but not for sustainability reasons.

I've had a Djeep lighter or two. They seemed very well made. They're really hard to find around here though, so it's Bics for me.

I tend to keep hot embers in both my wood burning stove and my Rayburn cooking stove, so that it takes very little to relight the fires.  When I do need it, I use matches.  I have used matches for more than 20 years, ever since I saw the first picture of a dead pelican whose stomach was filled with plastic, including a couple of BIC lighters.

Olga Booker wrote:I tend to keep hot embers in both my wood burning stove and my Rayburn cooking stove, so that it takes very little to relight the fires.  When I do need it, I use matches.  I have used matches for more than 20 years, ever since I saw the first picture of a dead pelican whose stomach was filled with plastic, including a couple of BIC lighters.

If you're operating with hardwood and have coals that hold well, that is by far the best method.

I am saddened by the image of the pelican. Back when everybody smoked, I used to find dead lighters regularly in rivers and lakes, along with butts. Sheesh.

If we follow the fossil fuel mania to its logical conclusion, then all of us, including myself should move into a cave somewhere and wear animal skins or fig leaves sewn together.  This is total nonsense.  If you use anything, and I mean anything that contains plastic or plastic fiber, including threads and fabrics, you are using something derived from so called fossil fuels.  My recommendation is try warming up quickly without using a fossil fuel sourced or unsustainable sourced match and see how much you like it.  Let's face it folks, our current day greed-driven world is what it is.  So, what are you going to do about it besides pontificating.  Quit being mad at the bad guys and work on something real.  All this greenie stuff pales in comparison when one is facing freezing or starving to death. Who gives a rat's _ _s when its -20 to -50 and you need to warm up.  We are talking about cold time, or winter time, or cooking time heat here people.  Most of this sustainability stuff is mere rhetoric anyway.  What I like about permies is/are things like rocket stoves, swales, hügelkultur, composting toilets, skiddable wood sheds, and stuff like that......discussions about sustainability of possibly fossil fuel sourced matches and lighters....not so much.  Viola!

Personally, I think there is room for this discussion. The collective creative brains on this forum often come up with approaches I have not thought of. If it doesn't suit you, that's up to you.

If you're operating with hardwood and have coals that hold well, that is by far the best method.  

I use soft wood during the day and hard wood at night to bank the fires.  I would not use coal by choice, but never say never.

To Marco Benito:

The Permies Forum is - to me at any rate - more than just a Forum.  It is a community, a virtual village, a tribe almost where people feel safe to ask any questions, voice any concern, enjoy sharing & debating and our big chief makes sure that the tribe is "nice", happy and thriving.

We are all entitled to our opinions, the way you voice them is what matters.  There are many subjects on this Forum that do not float my boat, I even sometimes think that it might be a waste of my time, so I just move along and read something that catches my interest.  That does not invalidate the questions or subject matters.

The OP's question is valid.  He has a concern and a genuine interest in knowing what other people think and do.  No one is talking about a return to cave dwelling.

By the way, I assume that the word you use at the end of your tirade is meant to be: Voilà, French for here it is or here you go.  Since viola is either a flower or an Italian musical instrument it does not make much sense at the end of a sentence.  Just my opinion of course, but being French I am very opinionated!