Impact from Biomass Stoves

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)


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.


This cooking practice leads to a number of environmental issues


This cooking practice prevents income generating work & other issues



Sources

Research Matters study in India

Indoor Air Quality and Cognitive Performance research paper by Steffen Künn

WHO Fact Sheet

WHO Household Pollution Data

Twitter thread on Cognitive Decline