Blog #10 Indoor Air Quality

Indoor Air Quality in Poverty Stricken Communities

I found the article on household air pollution quite interesting.  I have never have thought about air pollution indoors until I read this article published by the WHO.  They report that approximately 3 billion people cook on open fires fulled by kerosene, biomass (this is a new word for me) and coal.  Just to clarify that 'Biomass' consists of wood, animal dung and crop waste to make a fire.  This way of cooking leads to adverse health effects such as pre-mature deaths, stroke, MI, COPD and lung cancer.  In children under 5 years of age, half of the deaths are from pneumonia caused by particulate matter (soot) from the household air pollution.  

Household air pollution is more problematic in third world and developing countries.  As a result, the Global Alliance has set  a goal to have households to adopt clean cooking stoves by year 2020 with the aim of eliminating deaths from cooking by 2030.  This statistic is astounding to me because it was not known to me about the risks of indoor air pollution.  In order to achieve the 2020 goal, there are alliances from different disciplines that must contribute their expertise in this issue.  Expert advise and experience comes from specialties like. epidemiology, climate science, global finance and gender equality.  

I am being presumptuous in stating that my house has no air pollution caused by my indoor cooking methods, however, I do like to BBQ and I use a gas grill but sometimes I use a charcoal grill doused in fire starter to fuel the fire.  After reading this article, I think I will limit my outdoor cooking, and only use a gas grill.  Even though all this combustion cooking is done outdoors, who is to know if any of the smoke or fumes remain inside my home or on my food.