Using smarter stoves to combat household air pollution
When it comes to cooking indoors over open fires, the harmful health effects can be equal to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. This indoor air pollution plagues nearly nine out of every 10 Bangladeshi households, which use wood and other biofuels to cook inside.
Over time, exposure to smoke from indoor cooking leads to deadly diseases such as lung cancer, stroke, and heart disease. This is why it's the most deadly environmental problem in the world. In Bangladesh, such indoor air pollution is responsible for 10-15 percent of all deaths.
It may seem obvious to say that we need to focus on cutting household air pollution. But such policies compete with many other potentially beneficial proposals for how to use scarce resources from the national budget or international stakeholders.