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In my previous post, I provided a brief overview of numerous types of air pollution, classifying them as indoor and outdoor air pollution. In this post, I'll discuss the problem of indoor air pollution in depth, as well as examining the negative impacts of this.
Cooking on Open Biomass Stoves is a big problem in poor and middle-income countries
Poor individuals and families in low and middle-income nations (including significant portions of Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Nepal) rely on open stoves to cook with biomass (wood, animal dung, crop waste). Open stoves are those whose design allows smoke and particulate matter to remain around the cooking area and are not effectively contained or vented. This is due to a lack of access to cleaner kinds of cooking / the ease with which they can acquire or purchase biomass.
Cooking biomass in an open stove releases particulate matter, black carbon, and several hazardous gases: methane, carbon monoxide, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), volatile organic compounds (VOC)
Cooking biomass in an open stove releases particulate matter, black carbon, and several hazardous gases: methane, carbon monoxide, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), volatile organic compounds (VOC)
These stoves are not very efficient in burning biomass. This is why some of these gases, which would have typically been burnt off in secondary burn in a more efficient stove, get released while using an open design stove.
This issue is magnified if these stoves are inside a home (either in a main living area or in a separate cooking hut). Cooking is typical done inside, as its not practical to cook outside due to issues such as bad weather.
Majority of these stoves don't have a good venting system (e.g. a chimney) and as a result, toxic particles linger around the cooking area.
Women and children bear the brunt of health issues from indoor air pollution, as they spend the majority of their time cooking.
This cooking practice leads to a number of health issues
This cooking practice leads to a number of health issues
Around 2.6 billion people cook using these open biomass stoves. Globally, approximately 4 million individuals die prematurely as a result of illnesses caused by these inefficient cooking habits.
Pneumonia: Risk for childhood pneumonia is doubled and is responsible for 45% of all pneumonia deaths in children less than 5 years old.
Stroke: 12% of all deaths due to stroke is associated to the daily exposure to household air pollution arising from this cooking practice
Ischaemic heart disease: Approximately 11% of all deaths are due to ischaemic heart disease, accounting for over a million premature deaths annually. This is attributed to exposure of household air pollution.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): One in four deaths from COPD are due to exposure to indoor air pollution.
Lung Cancer: Approximately 17% of lung cancer deaths in adults are linked to exposure to carcinogens from household air pollution
Cognitive Decline: Recent advanced research has also made the connection between poor indoor air quality and cognitive decline. In this research paper, Steffen Kunn summarized his findings as “we show that poor indoor air quality hampers cognitive performance significantly. We find that an increase in the indoor concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) by 10 μg/m3 increases a player's probability of making an erroneous move by 26.3%”.
Musculoskeletal Damage: Gathering biomass is back-breaking work and resulting in a majority of women and children suffering from musculoskeletal damage.
Risk of burns: Open stoves are mainly inside homes and need to be constantly looked after (fire has to be constantly stoked). This increases risk of burns from the hot cooking stove, especially for children.
Risk of poisoning: In some areas, kerosene is used in open stoves. The ingestion of kerosene is the leading cause of childhood poisonings.
Other: There is also evidence of impact to low birth weight, tuberculosis, cataract, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancers.
This cooking practice leads to a number of environmental issues
This cooking practice leads to a number of environmental issues
Global Warming: Black carbon is the 2nd most significant contributor to climate change. 25% of these emissions come these stoves. Particulate Matte (or Soot) and methane emitted by these cookstoves are powerful climate change pollutants and lead to global warming
Deforestation: Use of firewood in many parts of the world also contributes to deforestation, and soil erosion as a secondary effect
This cooking practice prevents income generating work & other issues
This cooking practice prevents income generating work & other issues
Time put in gathering biomass —> prevents income generating work and keeps children away from school. Based on some of my discussions with non-profits working in this area, women & children spend 5-8 hours every day gathering biomass for their open cooking stoves. A lot of these women are educated and want to work but are unable to do so. The same problem applies to children and their education.
Higher expenses / higher time spent: Since these stoves burn biomass inefficiently, they consume a lot of biomass. This results in either increase in expenses (if one has to buy biomass) or increase in time spent to gather biomass.
Risk of Violence: In some environments, women and children are at risk of violence and sexual harassment while they are gathering biomass.
Sources
Sources
Research Matters study in India
Indoor Air Quality and Cognitive Performance research paper by Steffen Künn
Twitter thread on Cognitive Decline
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