Indoor Air Pollution: The issue and Solution

Indoor Air Pollution is a frequent phenomenon in Asian households. It refers to burning solid fuel sources – such as firewood, crop waste, and dung for cooking and heating. Usually practised in poor households, these result in severe health repercussions and even premature deaths. It is undoubtedly one of the worst environmental problems that particularly target the poor section of the society. According to the Global Burden of Disease study 1.6 million people died prematurely in 2017 as a result of indoor air pollution. This accounts for 3% deaths globally. The numbers are even worse than what number of homicides accounted for in 2017. The general impact of indoor air pollution is most severely dealt by low-income regions of Asia and Africa. The island country of Papua New Guinea has the highest share of 11% annual deaths due to indoor air pollution. [1]

Indoor air pollution results majorly from poor access to clean cooking fuels. The burning of such fuels in enclosed spaces such as small households is a major risk factor for exacerbation of  major health risk, particularly for respiratory diseases. Nearly 1.9 billion people in developing Asian countries rely on biomass fuel (e.g., wood or dung) for cooking.The traditional cooking stoves where these biomass fuels are used for cooking cause heavy indoor air pollution which commonly exceeds safe limits by a factor of ten, or even hundreds.  The inefficient design of traditional cooking stove causes this to happen. Women who are endowed with the responsibility of managing these inefficient cookstoves are burdened with responsibility of collecting fuel for it.  Even though the world progresses and annual incomes of household rise, the IEA predicts that 1.77 billion people in developing Asia will still be using traditional biomass stoves in 2030 under existing policies (IEA 2010). 

The detrimental environment effects of indoor household pollution is mainly on climate change. Black carbon emissions or soot form through combustion of these fuels, further contaminating the air. It has contributed to climate change at global and regional levels. It has been found that ice caps and glaciers at high altitudes are affected by black carbon which accumulates and traps solar radiation and accelerates ice and snow melt. Black carbon also combines with  aerosols in atmospheric brown clouds (ABCs) which dims light that reaches Earth surface and alters the regular temperature patterns. Soot has excessive effects, even worse than certain greenhouse gases.  [2]

Although there can be several solutions to indoor air pollutions such as proper ventilation, source control by keeping smoke emissions away from houses, etc. However, large scale solutions need to be found that can be accessed by the worst affected stratas of society. An interesting solution that can be access to better cookstoves. These can be modern improved cookstoves. These cookstoves will aim to reduce the use of biomass fuels in households for cooking. Several such designs have already started coming up that are powered by electricity.

In a comparative study between traditional and improved cookstove, the effect of their use was analysed through the change air quality in the household. [3] The study incorporated both extensive and intensive real-time indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring during the two cooking sessions of the day. The pollutant concentrations were reported in terms of 24-h as well as 8-h (cooking hours including morning and evening meal) averages. The results of the study highlighted that deployment of improved cook stoves would help in improving the IAQ of the kitchen area by resulting in reducing the concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, PM1 and CO by 21–62%, 20–80%, 24–87% and 19–93%, respectively. It was also highlighted that the kitchen characteristics significantly influence the accumulation of air pollutants, demonstrated by the results that the IAQ being worst in the case of enclosed kitchen, resulted in the highest exposure index values.

For the ultimate success of these cookstoves, the primary impetus is that they are provided to rural households at subsidised rates. There needs more research on the designs of these cookstoves to develop quality cookstoves.  There is utmost need to protect the most vulnerable groups of females and children from this environmental menace. In developing countries like India, there is a crucial need for promotion of schemes to shift to clean and energy efficient technologies in the rural setting. 

SOURCES:

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/indoor-air-pollution#indoor-air-pollution-is-one-of-the-leading-risk-factors-for-premature-death

[2] https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/156203/adbi-wp348.pdf

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412018324772