Breathe Easy: Reducing Indoor Air Pollution In Developing Nations

Indoor air pollution is a major problem in developing countries, where the burning of solid fuels like wood, coal, and dung releases harmful pollutants, including fine particulate matter and carbon monoxide. This has severe health, environmental, and social consequences, disproportionately affecting women and children.

To reduce indoor air pollution, it is important to eliminate individual sources of pollution or reduce their emissions. Some sources, like those containing asbestos, can be sealed or enclosed, while others, like gas stoves, can be adjusted to decrease emissions. Increasing ventilation by opening windows and doors or using fans and air conditioners can also help lower indoor pollutant levels.

Additionally, using air cleaners and filters can be effective, especially for particle removal. Choosing low-emitting building materials and furnishings, such as bamboo, wool carpets, and latex paint, can also reduce indoor pollution.

Finally, natural solutions like keeping indoor spaces clean and dry, using indoor plants, and opting for natural cleaning products can help minimize indoor air pollution.

Reduce the use of solid fuels, such as coal, wood, and animal dung, for cooking, heating, and lighting

Reducing the use of solid fuels, such as coal, wood, and animal dung, for cooking, heating, and lighting, is crucial for improving indoor air quality and protecting public health, especially in developing countries. Here are some detailed strategies and measures to achieve this:

Promote Clean and Efficient Stoves:

• Improved cookstoves: These stoves are designed to burn fuel more efficiently, reducing the amount of harmful emissions released into the air. They can significantly decrease indoor air pollution and its associated health risks.
• Clean cooking technologies: Promote the adoption of alternative clean cooking technologies, such as solar cookers, biogas stoves, or electric stoves. These technologies eliminate the need for solid fuels altogether.
• Fuel efficiency: Encourage the use of stoves with higher fuel efficiency, which can reduce fuel consumption and the overall demand for solid fuels.

Education and Behavioural Changes:

• Awareness campaigns: Educate communities about the health risks associated with indoor air pollution caused by solid fuel burning. Raise awareness about the benefits of using cleaner and more efficient stoves.
• Behavioural changes: Encourage simple behavioural changes, such as proper ventilation during cooking and heating to reduce the concentration of pollutants indoors.
• Tradition and cultural preferences: Address cultural and traditional barriers that may hinder the adoption of improved stoves. Collaborate with local leaders and communities to find acceptable solutions that balance tradition and health.

Access to Alternative Fuels:

• Alternative fuels: Promote the use of alternative fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), ethanol, or compressed natural gas (CNG). These fuels burn cleaner and produce fewer harmful emissions.
• Fuel distribution: Improve access to alternative fuels by establishing distribution networks and supply chains in rural and remote areas.
• Fuel affordability: Work with governments and organisations to ensure the affordability of alternative fuels for low-income communities. Provide subsidies or create microfinance schemes to assist with the purchase of cleaner fuels.

Integrated Approaches:

• Interdisciplinary collaboration: Bring together researchers, public health professionals, engineers, and social scientists to develop comprehensive solutions. Involve local communities to ensure cultural sensitivity and acceptance.
• Gender inclusion: Ensure the inclusion of women in decision-making processes regarding stove adoption and fuel choices, as they are often disproportionately affected by indoor air pollution.
• Address fuel foraging risks: In regions where women and girls are subject to attacks during fuel foraging, provide alternative sources of fuel or promote community-based solutions for safer fuel collection.

Improve ventilation by opening windows and doors, using fans, or installing heat recovery ventilators

Improving ventilation is one of the three basic strategies to improve indoor air quality. Ventilation is the process of increasing the amount of outdoor air coming indoors. It is particularly important to increase ventilation while engaging in activities that can generate high levels of pollutants, such as painting, cooking, or engaging in maintenance activities.

Natural Ventilation

Natural ventilation is the movement of air through opened windows and doors. It can be used to moderate indoor air temperature and improve indoor air quality by reducing indoor pollutants.

Mechanical Ventilation

Advanced designs of new homes are starting to feature mechanical systems that bring outdoor air into the home. Some of these designs include energy-efficient heat recovery ventilators (also known as air-to-air heat exchangers). Heat recovery ventilators remove stale indoor air and replace it with fresh outdoor air while retaining heat from the indoor air to warm the fresh air. This helps to improve indoor air quality while reducing energy costs.

Fans

Local bathroom or kitchen fans that exhaust outdoors remove contaminants directly from the room and increase the outdoor air ventilation rate. Window or attic fans can also be operated when the weather permits to increase the outdoor ventilation rate.

Use exhaust fans in kitchens and bathrooms to remove contaminants and increase outdoor air ventilation

Exhaust fans in kitchens and bathrooms are an effective way to remove contaminants and increase outdoor air ventilation. They are particularly useful for removing pollutants generated from short-term activities, such as cooking, painting, and heating with kerosene heaters.

• Install exhaust fans in kitchens and bathrooms that vent directly outdoors.
• Use exhaust fans while cooking, especially when using gas stoves.
• Keep exhaust fans on while performing activities that generate high levels of pollutants, such as painting, sanding, or engaging in hobbies like welding.
• If possible, perform these activities outdoors.
• Use window or attic fans when the weather permits to increase outdoor air ventilation.
• Consider advanced designs for new homes that feature mechanical systems to bring in outdoor air, such as energy-efficient heat recovery ventilators.

It is important to note that simply opening windows and doors can also increase outdoor air ventilation. However, in some cases, increasing ventilation can lead to higher energy costs. Therefore, a balance between ventilation and energy efficiency should be considered.

Choose low-emitting building materials and furnishings to reduce the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are a large group of chemicals commonly found in household and building products. They are released or "off-gas" into the air we breathe and can have adverse health effects, even at low levels. Common examples of VOCs include benzene, formaldehyde, and toluene.

To reduce the release of VOCs, it is important to choose low-emitting building materials and furnishings. Here are some tips to achieve this:

• Opt for solid wood items with low-emitting finishes instead of composite wood products. Composite wood is made by gluing wood particles, veneers, or boards together, and the adhesives used can contain high levels of VOCs.
• When purchasing new furniture, look for items that have been allowed to off-gas in the store or choose floor models. This way, they would have already released a significant amount of VOCs before you bring them into your home.
• Avoid or minimise the use of products containing VOCs, such as paint, varnishes, caulks, adhesives, and air fresheners. If you must use these products, ensure good ventilation during and after application.
• Look for low-VOC options when selecting paints, furnishings, and other household products. Many manufacturers now offer low-VOC or VOC-free alternatives.
• Increase ventilation by opening doors and windows, and use fans to maximise the amount of fresh air circulating indoors. This will help dilute the concentration of VOCs.
• Maintain low temperatures and relative humidity as chemicals off-gas more in high temperatures and humidity.
• If possible, perform home renovations when the house is unoccupied or during seasons that allow for increased ventilation.
• Regularly inspect your home for common sources of VOCs, such as unused chemicals like paints, solvents, adhesives, and caulks. Store these items properly in a garage or shed, and dispose of any unused or expired products at household hazardous waste collection sites.

Use natural ingredients, such as vinegar and baking soda, for cleaning instead of conventional cleaning products that release toxic fumes

Using Natural Ingredients to Reduce Indoor Air Pollution in Developing Countries

Using Vinegar and Baking Soda for Cleaning

Baking soda and vinegar are often touted as one of the best home cleaners, but does it work for everything?

Cleaning Stove Burners

As someone who loves to cook, my kitchen stove sure does take a beating each night. I am always having to clean stove burners, especially because I am unable to make anything without making a mess – that is the joy of cooking from scratch I suppose.

It only made sense that I started my vinegar-baking soda cleaning experiment in my kitchen, sprinkling an ample amount of baking soda over my cold stove in as even a layer as I could manage before saturating it in white vinegar. Only when every inch of the baking soda was fizzing did I leave the solution on the stove for 15 minutes to do its thing.

Given that I had tried every way of scrubbing off some of the burnt-on food before I didn't have high hopes (I am looking at you, burnt milk) but I was amazed. After leaving it to sit for a while, I used a gentle scrubbing brush to work the paste around and start to lift the grime away. I removed the mixture using some paper towels before wiping it down with plain water and drying it with a towel. My stove had not looked that shiny since it was first fitted!

Unblocking Bathroom Sinks

Cleaning a bathroom sink is not exactly the hardest of household chores. The drain, on the other hand, is not as simple (particularly if your hair falls out as frequently as mine does). How my hair has managed to clog my bathroom sink drain I have no idea – although maybe it has to do with brushing it there each morning and not collecting it all from the basin before turning it on...

Regardless, I have always heard that vinegar and baking soda were great to unclog a sink so I decided to try it for myself. And boy do I wish I had tried it sooner.

I started by pouring boiling water down the drain to clear it of loose debris before pouring one cup of baking soda and one cup of vinegar down the drain immediately after one another, allowing it to fizz within the drain rather than in the basin. Then, I covered the drain with the plug to keep the reaction within the pipes. I left this for 15 minutes once again before clearing the pipes through with another liter of boiling water. A bit of research taught me that this also helps to fight fungi and bacteria in my drains too!

The solution did not do as well for my kitchen drain, however, much to my disappointment. The vinegar-baking soda solution did a little bit to help improve the flow of wastewater but I don't think it was quite enough to shift any kind of grease build-up from food and fats. I think I will be sticking to more traditional unblockers in the meantime.

Cleaning Tile Floors

My kitchen flooring has seen a lot of foot traffic, both from the previous tenant and myself as I went back and forth from the yard when we first moved in. The result was a once-white marble tiled floor that was coated in a seemingly unmovable layer of grime. It looked awful if I am being honest with you.

I had tried a few floor cleaners and floor wipes to clean tile floors to no avail, so, seeing what the solution did for my stove, I decided to try it on my floors too!

I combined a cup of warm water, a cup of liquid dish soap, four tablespoons of white vinegar, and three-and-one-third cups of baking soda in a bucket and used a tough scrubbing brush dipped in the solution to coat and scrub my floor. It was not the most relaxed of cleaning experiences, requiring a lot of elbow grease on my hands and knees, but it paid off. The dark shadowy stains finally came away and, after a quick mop with some plain warm water, the floor finally looked whiter again.

Freshening Up the Washing Machine

Knowing how to clean a washing machine was not something I was familiar with until I listened to my grandmother's five laundry lessons, but luckily vinegar and baking soda make the job far easier.

A washing machine uses soap all the time, so why does it need cleaning? I hear you ask. I used to think the same thing until I realized that a build-up of detergent can quickly lead to mould and I certainly don't want to be washing my clothes in that.

When my washing machine started to smell a little damp, I put one cup of baking soda in the drum and four cups of white vinegar in the detergent drawer and allowed the machine to run on a hot cycle.

Once done, I quickly wiped around the drum seals and drawer slot and left the door and drawer open to dry out. It is the perfect solution for freshening up my machine between washes.

However, my house did smell like vinegar for a week...

While vinegar and baking soda really did help to clean so many stubborn things around my home, the smell of white vinegar certainly started to get to me after a while. I think, if I was to do this again, I would space out my cleaning projects so that my house didn't have a constantly lingering smell of vinegar.

One way I could have combatted the vinegar smell was to add lemon juice to each of my cleaning solutions, with the acidic lemon supposedly neutralizing the strong vinegar scent, but I had forgotten to buy some when I started my cleaning trial. Luckily, the smell wasn't something my best dehumidifier and a few open windows couldn't handle. But it is certainly something to think about before scrubbing your house top to bottom with this miracle mixture.

How Vinegar and Baking Soda Work

When mixed together, vinegar breaks down baking soda to release carbon dioxide gas. The violent reaction means that the solution is ideal for removing grease and grime as it breaks down the molecules and lifts them away from a surface. Because of this, it is best to clean with vinegar and baking soda while it is still bubbling and fizzing, and not when it has become still.

Frequently asked questions