Dangers to Health

In many countries, women and young children spend hours a day in smoky cook houses. The biomass (wood, animal dung and crop residue) used as fuel gives off toxic smoke at about seven times the safe limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA).LINK   According to the WHO, every twenty seconds a person dies from this condition known as Indoor Air Pollution (IAP).LINK   IAP can lead to lung cancer, low birth rate, cataracts, bronchitis, TB, higher infant mortality and asthma as well as pneumonia and other respiratory infections which are the biggest killers of children under five years of age in the developing world.LINK

In Guatemala City a woman who can no longer afford cooking fuel eats only bread and avocados.

Smoke inhalation is not the only health risk. Women and children also suffer back and neck injuries from gathering and carrying fuel wood.LINK   Children often burn themselves by falling into cooking fires.LINK   The injuries and diseases caused by the use of cooking fires can only be relieved by introducing less labor-intensive and cleaner cooking methods.

 Economic Hardship

 Families who buy their cooking fuel can spend up to one-quarter of their income on wood or gas.LINK   Other families who forage for fuel must continually look further and further from home as fuel wood becomes more scarce. Foraging for fuel wood is a demanding task that reduces the time women and children have for school and profitable work. For example, in El Salvador some women and children spend 3 to 4 hours a day foraging for fuel wood up to 5 times a week.LINK   As securing energy requires more time or money, people’s quality of life will continue to decline.

 Environmental Degradation

 More than three billion people, half of the world’s population, rely on cooking fires according to the WHO.LINK   These fires are inefficient, release CO2 into the atmosphere and consume fuel at unsustainable levels. The percentage of fuel wood consumption in developing countries is  wide and a quick interventions.

 

ENVIROFIT CLEAN COOK STOVES DISTRIBUTION:

Envirofit International is already known for its clean-burning cooking stoves, which have been on the market since May 2008. Since then, the stoves have reached 60,000 customers. Over the next five years, these stoves could reduce CO2 emissions by over 400,000 tons and prevent over 85,000 kg of black carbon from entering the atmosphere, all while generating savings of $18 million. Now the Colorado company has unveiled the next generation of its stove: the G-Series, a cheaper, more durable model suitable for poor families in the developing world.

Previous Envirofit stoves have been constructed from ceramic, but the new G-Series stove is made out of metal--a stronger material that is cheaper to produce. All of the company's single-pot stoves use wood, coal, and crop waste--the same materials used in traditional stoves--but Envirofit has developed a combustion chamber that uses up to 60% less fuel than other stoves and slashes toxic emissions by up to 80%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIOL LITE STOVE INNOVATION:

The Bio Lite Home Stove is the first improved cook stove to reduce
emissions by over 90% while also providing electricity access.
Previous designs for improved cook stoves can be classified as
“rocket” stoves or fan stoves. Rocket stoves have shown strong field
acceptance due to their low cost and simple operation, but only
achieve a 20% smoke reduction. Fan stoves can provide greater than 90%
smoke reduction by adding fans to promote complete combustion;
however, these stoves require an external electricity supply. The
BioLite stove solves these problems by converting a fraction of the
fire’s thermal energy into electricity, enabling 95% reductions in
emissions and a corresponding improvement in health and living
conditions.