Globally, 3 billion people – almost half of the world’s population – still use open fires to cook their food, causing more deaths than AIDS, Malaria and tuberculosis combined. Sari Perdana highlights a safer alternative.

Whether you are a smoker or not – you probably know the feeling when you accidentally breathe in the smoke of a cigarette, leaving you with a heavy cough and stinging eyes. Can you imagine that there are people who are exposed to the smoke of 400 cigarettes an hour on a daily basis?

Danger of household air pollution

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), this is the case for 3 billion people globally who still rely on open fires for cooking using firewood, coal and animal dung as their fuel. Burning solid fuels produces high levels of toxic fumes, also known as household air pollution, causing a range of diseases such as pneumonia, stroke or lung cancer.

“Every hour approximately 500 people die from the diseases attributable to household air pollution”

Every hour approximately 500 people die from the diseases attributable to household air pollution. The victims are predominantly women and the children accompanying them throughout the long process of cooking, they spending several hours in front of the fire every day.

Open cooking fires are not only a threat to the health of millions of people, they also entail environmental consequences. 21% of global black carbon emissions are generated by inefficient open cooking fires – having up to 1,500 times higher impact on global warming than CO 2 . Chopping down trees to fuel fires also causes deforestation as well as soil erosion.

Solutions

Although a stove that is designed to eliminate the smoke and consequently all smoke-related disease has been on the market for years, the high cost required to purchase and maintain these stoves has been a barrier for people living on less than $2 per day.

To counter this challenge, the Bhutanese Cooperative Dazin developed a social business model that includes impoverished communities in the distribution of smokeless stoves and the production of the fuel ‘cookies’ (small, dense briquettes). This is how they explain this model:

‘A woman living in a rural area of Bhutan gives her wood waste to us, instead of burning it as she normally does. We turn this crowdsourced wood waste into condensed fuel ‘cookies’ and in return, give her a smokeless cookstove on lease and enough fuel cookies to cover her needs. The surplus fuel (70%) made from her crowdsourced wood waste, is sold at a competitive price to urban customers ensuring economic sustainability and further development. The stove cost in rural areas is recovered within 7 months due to the fuel sales in cities.’

Impact

Open cooking fires are a huge problem that can only be solved if the needs of the beneficiaries are at the core of the solution.

Social Entrepreneurship is a way of combining the solution with a business model to ensure long-term impact.

During their yearlong pilot project in 2014, Dazin has proven the beneficiaries’ interest in a collaboration, and that their inclusive approach reduces wood consumption by 50%, eliminates black carbon entirely and reduces C0 2 emissions by 4 tons per stove every year.

Following their pilot success, Dazin is now running a crowdfunding campaign to expand their impact from 180 to 2,000 beneficiaries in Bhutan this winter.

Check out their Crowdfunding page and become part of the solution!

Author: Sari Perdana

Sari Perdana is an undergraduate student at the Dublin City University where she studies Global Business. The 21-year-old German is currently spending her mandatory internship in Copenhagen at the non-for-profit cooperative Dazin. She firstly got in contact with Suas during a Global Issues Course which amplified her interest for development work. View Sari’s LinkedIn profile.