Indoor Air Pollution: How bad is it really?
When was the last time you cooked something that filled your entire kitchen with smoke?
You had to open the windows, call the alarm company, and confirm that no, you hadn’t burnt dinner. Well…maybe.
Of course, this is a disaster. Yet the even larger disaster is that inefficient and dangerous cooking methods are still a reality for billions worldwide. This leads to missed education and work opportunities, serious health complications due to inhaling toxic fumes, and increased air pollution.
In fact, the inhalation of toxic fumes is the second biggest killer in Africa. It contributes up to 60% of early deaths due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Pexels, www.pexels.com/photo/lit-bonfire-outdoors-during-nighttime-1368382/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
Millions of African women every day spend hours burning wood over basic stoves in poorly ventilated spaces. As a result, they inhale toxic fumes and smoke from animal dung, charcoal, firewood, coal, and agricultural waste. This contributes to approximately 3.7 million premature deaths annually worldwide, with women and children most threatened.
This is important and relevant, even to a person living an ocean away from these biomass stoves.
Why?
There are several reasons. Global health impact, economic interdependencies, resource management, geopolitical stability, biodiversity loss, not to mention ethical responsibility.
But I am not here to convince you biomass stoves must go. Nor do I seek to depress you with statistics.
Instead, I seek to ask how the fields of public health and pollution control can come together to uniquely tackle this interdisciplinary problem.
Public Health + Pollution Control: Why combine them?
By combining public health’s pre-emptive insights with the reactive measures of pollution control, biomass stoves have met their match.
The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cook stove.
Wait, you’re thinking. You mean like the gas stove in my kitchen?
Yes and no.
These stoves are similar to the kind in your kitchen, yes.
As they are a type of gas stove, they work in a similar way to natural gas stoves. However, they use LPG, a flammable mixture of hydrocarbons including propane, butane, isobutane, butylenes, and propylene.
They are also one of the most popular alternative fuels used in the modern day.
But also, no. These stoves are different from what you have in your kitchen.
They are smaller and simpler to use, although still very expensive.
In fact, according to this 2023 Fortune article, a new cooking stove can swallow up to three-quarters of monthly income for a low-income household, depending on the technology.
However, making this change will pay back as much as four times the upfront investment within a year, due to the higher efficiencies of modern solutions.
So what is the innovation here?
Providing LPG stoves to replace biomass stoves is at the crossroads not only of pollution control and public health, but also of social justice and engineering.
The insight lies in this: indoor air pollution is not just a pollution problem. It is also a money problem, a health problem, and an education problem.
Pollution control is a field marked by its dedication to keeping our environment clean and safe. In this case, it is about focusing on managing and reducing air pollution. But that is not enough.
Pollution comes from people, and people have a long list of reasons for causing it. Most of these reasons boil down to one word: inefficiency.
It is, in this case, the field of public health that helps to identify and address this inefficiency.
As a discipline, it is not only about treating illnesses, but about preventing them too. It considers the big picture of health and policy in order to improve healthcare systems across all scales.
So when you combine these two fields, it becomes clear that pollution is really a people problem.
As such, it calls for a people solution.
The LPG stove is a great example of this, not because it is without fault (because it still has a long way to go), but because it tackles a multi-faceted problem with a multi-faceted solution.
It’s a solution that offers financial gain as well as improved health.
This is crucial, considering the harrowing effects of household air pollution (HAP) and the crippling implications of poverty.
Arslan, Adams. Pexels, www.pexels.com/photo/outdoor-cooking-using-firewood-11126365/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
In fact, according to this 2021 article in the journal Nature, “for 3 billion people living in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), the simple act of cooking is a major health and safety risk”.
Overall, household air pollution accounts for 3.8 billion premature deaths annually.
On the flipside, this means that billions also stand to benefit from cleaner cooking technology.
Not only this, but cleaner cooking technology could also act as a remedy to deforestation and climate change. While LPG gas is indeed a fossil fuel, much like oil and natural gas, it emits half as much carbon dioxide as cooking with charcoal.
In fact, achieving universal clean cooking access worldwide would cut global carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5 billion tonnes, the same amount generated by all planes and ships today.
What does this teach us?
There is a synergy between social justice and engineering. And that synergy is a source of tremendous innovation.
In a world divided by haves and have-nots, the voices of socially-committed citizens identify the gaps that engineers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs can apply their expertise to.
The lesson is to run toward collaboration, not away from it, and in doing so, untangle the problems we once thought unapproachable.
Thought to Action
- Adopt Energy-Efficient Cooking Practices: If applicable, switch to more energy-efficient cooking appliances in your own home. For example, using electric or induction stoves can reduce reliance on biomass fuels.
- Promote Sustainable Cooking Habits: Share recipes and cooking techniques that require less energy or a lower carbon footprint.
- Consumer Choices: Support businesses that provide eco-friendly cooking options or that invest in clean energy. This can include purchasing products from companies with sustainable practices or investing in green technologies.
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Implement and advocate for waste reduction strategies in your community. Less waste can mean less biomass burning, which contributes to indoor air pollution.
- Advocate for Clean Air Initiatives: Write to local representatives to support policies that reduce air pollution, such as incentives for clean cooking technologies or stricter emissions standards for industries.
Sources
Check your sources!
“The Human Health and Conservation Connection.” World Wildlife Fund, https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/the-human-health-and-conservation-connection. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“How Embracing ‘One Health’ Approach Can Create a More Sustainable Planet.” United Nations Environment Programme, https://www.unep.org/technical-highlight/how-embracing-one-health-approach-can-create-more-sustainable-planet. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Air Pollution Solutions: Technology.” Kaiterra, https://learn.kaiterra.com/en/air-academy/air-pollution-solutions-technology. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Access to Modern Stoves: A Game Changer for Africa’s Economic Development.” Fortune, 5 Dec. 2023, https://fortune.com/2023/12/05/access-modern-stoves-game-changer-africa-economic-developmentand-equivalent-carbon-dioxide-emissions-world-planes-ships-adesina-birol/. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Nigeria: How Clean Cooking Helps the Climate.” BBC Future, 3 Nov. 2021, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211103-nigeria-how-clean-cooking-helps-the-climate. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Darfur Low Smoke Stoves Project, Sudan.” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, https://unfccc.int/climate-action/momentum-for-change/financing-for-climate-friendly/darfur-low-smoke-stoves-project-sudan. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Zero Carbon Clean Cookstoves for Africa.” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, https://unfccc.int/climate-action/momentum-for-change/activity-database/zero-carbon-clean-cookstoves-for-africa. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Household cooking fuel estimates at global and country level for 1990 to 2030.” Nature, 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26036-x. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“LPG: An Alternative Fuel.” HowStuffWorks, https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/lpg2.htm. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
“Scaling Clean Cooking Responsibly: Tackling Air Pollution Through Woman-Centered Model in Nigeria.” Climate & Clean Air Coalition, https://www.ccacoalition.org/news/scaling-clean-cooking-responsibly-tackling-air-pollution-through-woman-centered-model-nigeria. Accessed 31 Dec. 2023.
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