Nexus of Improved Cookstove and Indoor Air Quality in Nigeria using Lagos State as Case Study

Abstract

The menace of indoor air pollution in Nigeria and the globe is becoming overwhelmingly cruel and with evidences ranging from the upsurge of death tolls accruing from gas flaring emitting indoors around the globe and is undoubtedly rising annually at an alarming rate. Terminal diseases including asthma, upper airway cancer, pneumonia in children, tuberculosis and cataract are caused by these indoor air pollutions. Several researches has discovered the use of firewood stove for cooking as a core source of cooking energy predominantly used by rural communities in the developing countries in the world and consequentially, poses health threats to residents. This traditional measures of energy consumption of rural households have been revealed to be inefficient and vastly attributed to air pollution and deforestation complications. As per a World Wellbeing Association report, 4.2 million individuals pass on from contact to open air contamination, notwithstanding the 3.8 million whose passings are connected to family smoke molded by filthy ovens and energizes, while in Nigeria smoke from Kitchen prompts 95,300 passings for each annum.The aim of this study is to compare the efficiency of the use of improved cookstove and traditional firewood stove within Lagos state, Nigeria. The fundamental objective of this work was to conduct indoor air quality assessment on detected pollutants between the applications of Firewood stove (FWS) and Improved Cookstove (ICS) in the study locations. The descriptive statistics of the detected pollutants were evaluated in both cases and the result unveil that the total volatile organic compound (TVOC) have the peak concentration level in all the rooms with mean value of 154.95 𝜇𝑔/𝑚³ and 141.70𝜇𝑔/𝑚³ for FWS and ICS respectively. Formaldehyde (HCHO) was minimum in concentration of air pollutants with mean value of 13.97𝜇𝑔/𝑚³ and 11.94𝜇𝑔/𝑚³ for FWS and ICS respectively. The concentrations of air pollutants with the use of improved cookstove rather than biomass fuels gave averagely fair levels relative to the standard limits, which was safer for use and thereby preferred rather than the Firewood Stove. The improved cookstove is hereby recommended for use to mitigate air pollution in the country. It is expedient to conduct indoor air quality assessment of any enclosed room dominated by residents where there is exposure to some suspected detrimental flumes in order to establish safety. The outcome will help foster policies and interventions that will enhance environmental sustainability.