Cookstoves

A biomass cook stove is heated by burning wood, charcoal, animal dung or crop residue. Cook stoves are commonly used for cooking and heating food in rural households. Nearly half of the world's population, approximately 3 billion people, use solid fuels such as coal, wood, animal dung, and crop residues for their domestic energy needs. Among those who use indoor cooking stoves, the poorest families living in rural areas most frequently use solid fuels, where it continues to be relied on by up to 90% of households.

Often used in open fires or poorly ventilated stoves, solid fuel burning is a significant source of indoor air pollution. Solid fuel smoke contains thousands of substances, many of which are hazardous to human health. The most well understand of these substances are carbon monoxide (CO); small particulate matter; nitrous oxide; sulfur oxides; a range of volatile organic compounds, including formaldehyde, benzene and 1,3-butadiene; and polycyclic aromatic compounds, such as benzo-a-pyrene, which are thought to have both short and long term health consequences.

Households in developing countries consume significantly less energy than those in developed countries; however, over 50% of the energy is for cooking food[citation needed]. The average rural family spends 20% or more of its income purchasing wood or charcoal for cooking[citation needed]. The urban poor also frequently spend a significant portion of their income on the purchase of wood or charcoal[citation needed].

Cooking over a traditional open fire or mud stove can cause increased health problems brought on from the smoke, particularly lung and eye ailments, but also birth defects. The health problems associated with cooking using biomass in traditional stoves affect women and children most strongly, as they spend the most time near the domestic hearth. Replacing the traditional 3-rock cook stove or mud stove with an improved one and venting the smoke out of the house through a chimney can significantly improve a family's health. There are many well-documented adverse health effects of exposure to pollutants from indoor cookstoves, including acute respiratory infections (ARIs), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), cataracts, low birth weight (LBW), increased perinatal and infant mortality, nasopharyngeal and laryngeal cancer, and lung cancer. It is estimated that 4% to 5% of the global mortality and disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) are from ARIs, COPD, TB, asthma, lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, and blindness attributed to solid fuel combustion when cooking in developing countries.

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