An overview of the Effect of Biomass in-door-air Pollution on Household Members

Abstract

Worldwide statistics show that 2.4 billion people depend on biomass fuel for cooking and heating. Biomass are plant materials and animal waste used especially as source of fuel. Typically, burned in open fire or inefficient stoves without appropriate ventilation, biomass fuels emit substantial amounts of health damaging pollutants leading to high level of exposure. In developing countries the level is at least 10-20 times higher than World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. Women and young children who spend many hours daily near the fire are the most exposed. A growing body of literature implicates in-door air pollution from biomass fuel as a risk factor for the development of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Lung cancer in women and Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) in young children.4-8 About two billion people have no access to modern energy and a billion have it only sporadically. Household members especially women and children in rural settlements collect all kinds of materials that are hazardous for their source of household energy. This is peculiar to the rural populations and more so the poor communities. Biomass fuels are at the low end of the energy ladder in terms of combustion efficiency and cleanliness. Smoke from biomass combustion produces a large number of health damaging air pollutants including inhalable particulate matter, Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen oxides, Formaldehyde, Benzene, 1,3 Butadiene, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and many other toxic organic compounds. In developing countries, where large proportions of households rely on biomass fuels for cooking and space heating, concentrations of these air pollutants tend to be highest indoors. The fuels are typically burned in simple, inefficient, and mostly unvented household cook stoves, which, combined with poor ventilation, generate large volumes of smoke indoors. Moreover, cook stoves are typically used for several hours each day at times when people are present indoors, resulting in much higher exposure to air pollutants than from out-door sources. More than three billion people or half the world's populations, cook in their homes using traditional fire and stoves, burning biomass fuels such as woods and crop waste materials. Household members breathe in the toxic fumes from these cooking fires daily.