Week9 post-session activity: Deadly dinners

This article talks about that there are still some people use solid biomass fuels such as wood, animal dung, agricultural waste and charcoal for cooking. Cooking with biomass fuels would cause healthy problems such as high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as cancer, as a result of which every year there will be 4.3 million people die from indoor air pollution caused by cooking especially in Southeast Asia and Western Pacific. Governments try to minimize this problem so they establish a cooking- stove program in India, however, it does not work, because of high program costs, poor stove design and lack of maintenance.

This article reminds me of my study of indoor air pollution in China. people spend average eight hours at home, for women in China, they would spend more than this average time. Therefore, indoor air pollution has harmful impacts on their health. Due to had outdoor air quality, indoor air quality is worse. Designers in China currently have to consider some methods to improve indoor air quality, such as source control, source isolation, increased ventilation, dehumidification, and filtration. Possible sources of contamination should be considered in source-control strategy. For example, banning smoking in public buildings, using carefully selected building materials to avoid the emission of toxic or irritating substances, and limiting the use of fibrous materials. Source-isolation strategy is used in situations where a source cannot be completely eliminated. For instance, copy machine areas, food service stations, and bathrooms are often separately set outside buildings to avoid the recirculation of return air. Increased ventilation and filtration are traditional approaches to ensure good indoor air quality. Dehumidification helps in the reduction of microbial growth. Low humidity should be maintained inside a house to limit the growth of such bacteria. In these ways, people can have a healthy indoor environment.