When Cooking Kills: Indoor Cooking Smoke, Health Risks, and Clean Cookstove Solutions

Would you use your barbeque grill inside your home?

In many developing nations meals are prepared indoors on open fires or inefficient stoves using wood, crop wastes, charcoal, coal, dung and kerosene. The dwelling fills with dangerous pollutants that can be 100 times higher than acceptable levels. 

The reality is that the simple act of meal preparation kills 3.8 million people every year.  Women and young children are especially vulnerable.  Women do most of the cooking, often with babies on their backs or young children nearby. Children under five are at most risk because their lungs and immune systems are still developing, they breathe faster (higher exposure per body weight), and they are often physically close to the cooking area. Exposure starts early and happens repeatedly, day after day.

The World Health Organization has long documented household air pollution as a major global health risk. Indoor cooking smoke is tied to respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The home death trap picture looks like this:

% of Deaths from Indoor Cooking

Pneumonia                                                                  27% (45% of these are in children under 5)

Ischemic heart disease                                              27%

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)   20%

Stroke                                                                           18%

Lung cancer                                                                8%

The hardships are many

Gathering fuel involves considerable time for women and children, limiting otherwise productive activities such as income generation and school attendance, and sometimes exposing them to physical danger. Environmentally, carbon and methane emitted by inefficient stoves exacerbate climate change, and there are safety risks such as burns, eye irritation, and children ingesting kerosene.

the solution is complex

The solution is clean, affordable cookstoves.  While that sounds simple, it isn’t. 

Many types of cookstoves have been developed, such as solar, ethanol, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), and high efficiency biogas stoves that reduce fuel usage and emissions.  But these stoves must be produced and sold at very low cost, and financing, marketing, and distribution systems must be established.

The fuel source must be both affordable and readily available locally. 

Training is needed to properly operate and maintain the stoves.   Without it performance drops, safety risks rise, and households lose confidence and abandon the product.

And there is often cultural resistance, with objections ranging from doubt that the stoves will cook as well as conventional methods to recipients remaining unconvinced as to why they are needed. 

the effort is worth it

Still, efforts from NGOs, the World Bank, and other agencies are making slow but steady progress.  In addition to health benefits, clean cookstoves allow poor families to save money on fuel and can open the door for women to start their own food businesses and earn incomes.

Successful implemention includes:

• consistent adoption

• reduced indoor smoke exposure

• functioning supply chains and after-sales support

• sustained fuel access and affordability

This fight is winnable, because no one should die from cooking.

For more information visit the Clean Cooking Alliance.