But for nearly half the world's population, building and maintaining a fire is a daily -- and often deadly -- chore.
In remote villages and
city slums, women tend to fires for hours on end, breathing in smoke
that is the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day,
according to the World Health Organization.
Many of these women have
their children close by or strapped to their chest or back, and the
dangerous pollutants from the smoke can result in severe damage to their
lungs as well.
Nancy Hughes witnessed this firsthand while working with a medical team in Guatemala more than a decade ago.
"There were doctors on
the medical team who could not put tubes down the babies' throats
because the throats were so choked with creosote," said Hughes, a
70-year-old grandmother who lives in Eugene, Oregon. "Imagine you've got
a new baby and you couldn't save that baby's life ... and it's because
of cooking."
Inhaling this polluted
air has also been linked to pneumonia, heart disease, lung cancer, low
birth weight and respiratory infections, just to name a few.
Hughes spent years
working with engineers to create the Ecocina, a stove that burns cleaner
to make it safer for people and better for the environment. In 2008,
she founded StoveTeam International,
which she says has established factories that have produced more than
37,000 stoves and improved the lives of more than 280,000 people in
Latin America.
Nancy Hughes, left, spent years working with engineers on a cleaner portable stove.
An estimated 4 million people each year die from exposure to cookstove smoke, according to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (PDF).
But Hughes and her group is trying to help change that. By using a
cleaner combustion process, the Ecocina stove reduces carbon emissions
and particulate matter by 70%. The quick-cooking unit is also
cost-efficient and portable, and it requires no installation or external
chimney.
"It's kind of a little
miracle," said Hughes, explaining that the "E" stands for environmental
and "cocina" is the Spanish word for kitchen.
Hughes' stoves also
provide an economic boost to the communities where she works, because
they are all built by local laborers using local materials. In the last
five years, her group has helped start six factories in five countries:
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.
"It not only employs the
people in the factory, but obviously they're buying all their supplies
locally. So anything they need, they're helping boost the local
businesses," Hughes said. "Also, some of the individuals who buy stoves
are starting their own catering businesses."
Today, 45 people are employed at the factories that her group has helped establish.
"On one of my recent
visits, one of the guys came up to me and wanted to have a picture
taken," Hughes said. "He said very proudly, 'Before I had this job, I
was picking coconuts -- and now I am a welder!' "
The Ecocina stove reduces carbon emissions and particulate matter by 70%. It also uses half the wood of an open fire.
Not only are the stoves improving and saving people's lives -- they are also saving forests.
In much of the world,
Hughes says, a household will use 50-100 pounds of wood to cook each
day. The Ecocina requires 50% less wood than a traditional open fire,
and twigs and fallen branches can be used to heat the stove.
Even the stove itself is designed to be environmentally friendly.
Culled from CNN
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