Cooking on wood open fire in developing countries: Emission Factors and indoor air pollution with PCDD/F and Dioxin like PCBs

Indoor air pollution caused by cooking on open fires is a problem of public health with effects in children under 5 years old and women in the reproductive age. In developing countries it has been calculated that about 1,849,000 deaths per year occur associated with exposure to smoke from biomass burning indoors. Apart from the issue of indoor exposure of mainly women and children and the adverse health effects on the spot, open cooking, due to its widespread use, has become an issue what regards the Global emission of POPs. The study presented compares indoor and outdoor air levels in a typical development country environment in Mexico where wood is used for open cooking. It was demonstrated, that under typical cooking scenarios, the indoor exposure with Dioxins and Furans is about twice the exposure outdoors. Due to the low additoinal exposure indoor (when compared to the more dominant exposure through food), it is concluded that the indoor risk are more associated with particulate matter and presumably PAH. Apart from the indoor exposure assessment, emission factors (EFs) for open cooking were obtained. These EFs will be used in the Standardized Toolkit for the quantification of Dioxin and Furan releases, an instrument applied in the compilation of the national Dioxin Inventories in the context of the implementation of the Stockholm Convention of POPs.

CARDENAS Beartiz;  UMLAUF Gunther;  MAIZ P.;  BENITEZ J.;  MARIANI Giulio;  SKEJO Helle; 

2012-05-23

International Advisory Board of the International Symposium on Halogenated Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)

JRC65150

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC65150,