How to improve Indoor Air Pollution

When people burn wood, dung, coal, charcoal, gas, and crop wastes indoors for cooking or heating without good ventilation, smoke fills the house. This smoke contains harmful gases (fumes) and tiny particulates (soot) that cause breathing problems and other illnesses. Headaches, dizziness, and fatigue are often followed by serious illnesses such as asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, or lung cancer. Indoor air pollution from smoking fires also increases the risk of getting TB. Women and children are the most exposed to harmful cooking smoke. When pregnant women are exposed to a lot of smoke every day, it can cause their children to be born very small, grow slowly, and have difficulty learning later on. In some cases, it can even cause children to be born dead.

To reduce indoor air pollution, you can:

• improve ventilation
• improve stoves
• use cleaner fuels
• use safer cleaning products
• reduce air pollution from outdoors

Poor ventilation harms health: Ventilation is the way fresh air moves into a room or building, and how old and polluted air moves out. If a house has poor ventilation, smoke and polluted air stay inside. Poor ventilation also traps moisture in the house, causing dampness and mold. The easiest way to reduce indoor air pollution is to improve ventilation. To know if your house has poor ventilation, look for these signs:

• Smoke stays in the house, or the ceilings are black from cooking or heating smoke.
• Moisture collects on windows or walls.
• Clothing, bedding, or walls grow mold.
• Bad smells from toilets or sewers stay in the house.

If you cook with gas and often suffer from dizziness and confusion, this may be a sign of poor ventilation or a gas leak.