Silent threat

Studies show modern kitchen is not as safe as believed. Use of exhausts, effective ventilation can reduce household pollution

Harmful gases and chemicals are released during combustion of both solid and gas fuels (Photo: Vikas Choudhary)Cooking takes place every day in homes across the world. Whether it is done on traditional mud stoves or on sophisticated burners, gases released during the process endanger the health and lives of people in the house. Experts say it is a misconception that kitchen exhaust and ventilation are not a necessity.

Harmful gases and chemicals are released during combustion of both kinds of fuel—solid (wood, coal, kerosene) and gas (natural, bio, LPG). The list of pollutants includes nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and formaldehyde. According to a study published in Environmental Health Perspective in August 2014, around 3 billion people in the world face household air pollution. Though most of these live in poor countries, the problem is not limited to poor countries. The study estimated that 500,000 to 600,000 people with low incomes in the US are exposed to indoor pollution because their primary source of heating is solid fuel. As per the World Health Organization estimates, 4.3 million people across the world die every year due to illnesses attributable to household air pollution. In comparison, outdoor air pollution kills 3.7 million a year.

Pollution from natural gas

A study conducted by researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, found that the use of natural gas for cooking generates substantial quantities of the pollutants. The research showed that the level of pollutants in homes using natural gas burners exceeds safe limits set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives on November 5, 2013.

The problems associated with gas fuels are not new. Another study, published in February 1996 in Lancet, found that exposure to burning gas stoves increases the risk of respiratory problems such as wheezing, shortness of breath and asthma attacks. Harmful effects associated with gas burners were also recognised by the Canada government which released a Clean Air Guide in 1993. The guide recognised gas water heaters, furnaces, unvented space heaters and cooking stoves as major causes of chemical contamination in homes. The agency recommended the replacement of gas appliances with electrical ones.

Advantages of gas fuel

Despite their drawbacks, gas stoves are still better than solid fuel stoves, says Kirk R Smith, professor of Global Environmental Health at the University of California, Berkeley. According to him, using gas may result in a slight overshoot of US standards for a few minor pollutants, but it is much better in comparison to the extensive particulate matter produced by solid fuel in India. Smith also says that in some cases, burning of gas has been found to aggravate respiratory problems in children, but it is not clear whether the effects are due to the emissions from the burning of gas or the food itself. Gas is a clean fuel, he says.

“Nothing is perfectly without risk. For those using solid fuels, gas would be immensely better,” says Smith, and adds, “only induction cooking produces no pollution at all in the house.”

However, induction cooking too is not completely harmless because fumes released from food during cooking can harm health. Frying and grilling of food releases acrolein which has been associated with cancer in some studies. Acrolein is also present in cooked foods in trace quantities. It is formed from carbohydrates, vegetable oil, animal fats and amino acids during cooking of food. A study published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology in 2013 shows that exposure to fumes released from cooking oil could lead to DNA damage and cancer. But there is no conclusive evidence to link acrolein with cancer.

“Fumes released in cooking processes such as seasoning with mustard, curry leaves, and chilly, can act as respiratory irritants in some individuals,” says Ramakrishna Goud, additional professor at the department of community health, St John’s Medical Research Institute in Bengaluru.

Ventilation, the best solution

According to a study conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the use of exhaust hoods or electronic kitchen chimneys can considerably reduce toxic chemicals released during cooking.

Brett C Singer, co-author of the study, says, “Our key finding is that even with a clean fuel source of natural gas used for cooking, it is important to ventilate when using indoor combustion. As homes become tighter, which improves comfort and reduces energy needs for heating and cooling, it is even more important to provide ventilation when cooking and using combustion sources. Otherwise, indoor air quality problems can occur.”

Singer and his team studied the efficacy of household cooking exhaust hoods in capturing and venting out air pollutants generated by gas burners due to combustion of fuels. The capture efficiency of the seven devices they tested varied from less than 15 per cent to more than 98 per cent. The study found that all exhaust hoods do a better job of capturing pollutants generated by the two back-burners of a four burner stove than its front burners. The study was published in Environmental Science and Technology in 2012. The researchers suggested that improvements in design, use of grease traps and better motors can make kitchen chimneys more effective.

Singer and his team followed this research with another one to assess the ability of exhaust hoods in capturing pollutants generated by food items during cooking. The team found that the capture efficiency of exhaust hoods in venting out fumes generated by food items kept at the back-burners was not much different from their efficiency in venting out fumes generated by gas fuel combustion from back-burners, calculated in the previous study. However, the figures were different for front burners. The study says that capture efficiencies (CE) for “combustion pollutants are not predictive of CEs for cooking-generated particles under all conditions”. The findings were published online in the journal Indoor Air on May 24, 2014. Singer stresses, “Solution to avoiding pollution from gas burners is to effectively ventilate.”

In a report published in January 2014 by the Berkeley Lab, Singer and his team said it was a common misconception that kitchen exhaust is not necessary during cooking. The team suggested measures to counter kitchen contaminants. These include raising public awareness on the need of kitchen ventilation and setting performance targets to ensure development of high quality products.

INDIA ENVIRONMENT PORTAL

• Household cooking with solid fuels contributes to ambient PM2.5 air pollution and the burden of disease

  Estimating the number of low-income Americans exposed to household air pollution from burning solid fuels

  A method to estimate the chronic health impact of air pollutants in U.S. residences
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Road map to save environment

A global map highlights regions where road construction will have high environmental costs

India plans to construct over 0.8 million kilometres of roads by 2025 to connect every habitat in the country, as per the targets outlined in the government's Rural Road Development Vision. Worldwide, 25 million kilometres of roads are proposed to be constructed by 2050—a 60 per cent increase in road length from 2010—and nine-tenths of this new construction is expected in developing countries such as India. But construction of roads often harms biodiversity and destroys wild habitat. To weigh the potential benefits associated with road construction against their environmental impact, William Laurance, professor at James Cook University, Australia, and colleagues conducted a study and came up with a map that can help policymakers take informed decisions on where to construct roads.

The map highlights regions where road constructions will have high environmental costs. It is based on two factors: environmental values and road benefits. Environmental values are measured by integrating global data on three classes of parameters: biodiversity, key wilderness habitats and carbon storage and climate-regulation services of the local ecosystem. The researchers assigned a value between zero and one to each part of the globe. Regions with sensitive environments and, therefore, high environmental value scored close to one on a scale of zero to one. Similarly, road benefits were defined on the basis of potential increase in agricultural production resulting from better connectivity offered by roads.

The two sets of data were combined to generate a global map where every square kilometre (sq km) has been assigned a colour (see map). Green areas are those where road building would have relatively high environ-mental costs and only modest potential benefits for agriculture, while red-shaded areas have a high potential to increase agricultural production and low environmental values. Large parts of the Indian subcontinent fall under this category. Black and dark-shaded areas are “conflict zones” with high values on both the parameters, whereas white and light-shaded areas are of lower priority for both environment and agriculture.

Red shades highlight areas where road construction will benefit agriculture and have minor environmental costs, while green shades denote areas where roads will have high environmental costs and low agricultural benefits (Source: Nature, August 27, 2014)

In countries such as Indonesia and Madagascar, which have been assigned “exceptional environmental value”, the authors suggest adoption of alternative methods, such as ecotourism and harvesting the forest produce, to meet economic development goals. The authors note that roads are being constructed or are planned in regions that have high environmental values but only modest agricultural potential. These regions include the Amazon Basin, parts of the Asia-Pacific region and high latitude forests in the Northern Hemisphere. The map also shows that regions where road making is environmentally feasible exist in every continent. In total 12.3 per cent of the global land area has been mapped red. These include parts of central Eurasia, the Irano-Anatolian region, African Sahel and the Indian subcontinent. The study was published in Nature on August 27.

What ails India

What does the study mean for countries such as India which the map says has a huge scope for constructing roads with minimal environ-mental impact? According to Laurance, road construction even in such areas will have environmental impact (see `Unplanned roads can cause a lot of damage'). There are several examples to show this. Sanjay Gubbi of Mysore-based non-profit Nature Conservation Foundation says 23 leopards have died in road accidents in Karnataka in the past five years. He says environmental impact assessments done before laying new roads often ignore ecological issues resulting in loss of biodiversity and animal habitat. But this can be easily avoided.

Gubbi worked with the state government to realign a part of the Mysore-Mananthavadi road passing through the Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. “The realigned road helps 'defragment' wildlife habitat in addition to providing connectivity to 11 villages,” he says.

`Unplanned roads can cause a lot of damage'   William Laurance, professor at James Cook University, Australia, says though India has a lot of areas where road construction can benefit agriculture,it also has a number of exceptionally important environments where new roads can cause a lot of damage. Excerpts from an interview In the global road map you have generated, a large part of India is marked feasible for road making. Does this mean India need not worry much about environmental issues before laying roads? No, it is not that simple. Areas in red are where road benefits would be greatest and where environmental values are less pronounced. But even in such areas, roads can and will have environmental impacts. For instance, it has been shown that tigers in India can move across large areas of settled and semi-settled land between tiger reserves-dispersing hundreds of kilometresin some cases. With increasing roads and agricultural intensification, the settled lands between reserves will become more hostile for wildlife such as tigers. Also, of course, India has a number of exceptionally important environments where new roads can cause a lot of damage. Some examples would include the country's national parks, rainforests of the Western Ghats, parts of the Himalayas, and tropical and higher-elevation forests in Arunachal Pradesh. However, in broad terms our study does indicate that there is much potential in India to improve agriculture. Road improvements, such as paving, can contribute to agricultural productivity by better linking farmers with markets and making fertiliser and agricultural technologies more accessible. Lack of infrastructure has been a big issue in India. What key issues should be kept in mind while planning new roads? Our key points are that roads that penetrate into wilderness areas or parks can cause a great deal of environmental damage, and so one has to be very careful about planning new roads. Our study tries, on a broad global scale, to underscore the kinds of situations where roads can be most harmful and where they can be most beneficial. Actual road planning will also need to incorporate local-scale information, because the global datasets we had access to are often too coarse for actual road-planning. How should areas that appear ecologically sensitive on your map but already have roads laid out be dealt with? Many environmentally important areas around the world already have roads. A key priority is to limit further road proliferation in these areas, and even to close some existing roads if it appears that they are causing a lot of environmental damage and generating only limited benefits.

INDIA ENVIRONMENT PORTAL

• A global strategy for road building

  Impact of vehicular traffic on the use of highway edges by large mammals in a South Indian wildlife reserve

  Rural accessibility and development: Sustainability concerns in an ecologically fragile mountain belt
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Real threats of virtual world

Spending too much time on the Internet is causing mental health disorders. Is India prepared to tackle the addiction?

Photo: Vikas Choudhary

It all began when he was in the 11th standard. His inquisitive mind led him towards the Internet, and he started spending more time in front of the computer. Long hours of sitting took a toll on his health and he developed back pain. Yet the 16-year-old boy in Pune could not stay away from the virtual world. By the end of that year, he had downloaded data worth Rs 12,000. One day, when his mother tried to unplug the Internet connection, he stabbed her. She was saved, but the boy’s obsessive behaviour kept worsening. His parents took him to Chaitanya Mental Health Care Centre (CMHCC) where he was diagnosed with Internet addiction. He was cured after three months of behaviour modification therapy and counselling sessions along with his family.

Rony George, director of CMHCC, says those who use Internet for 14 to 15 hours daily, or to the extent that their everyday routine gets affected, can be categorised as Internet addicts. He says his centre receives four to five Internet addicts every month; most are in their teens.

With more than 243 million Internet users by November 2014, India ranks third in terms of Internet usage, following the US and China, according to internetlivestats.com, which provides information on Internet users. However, there is no consolidated data to show the extent of addiction to the technology in India. Health experts say with explosive use of the Internet in the last decade and growing dependence on it, a good number of people with access to multimedia could be suffering from the behavioural disorder.

In 2013, a study funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) surveyed 2,755 people in the age group of 18 to 65 in urban areas of Bengaluru. The researchers found that 1.3 per cent people were addicted to the Internet, 4.1 per cent to mobile phones, 3.5 per cent to social networking sites, 4 per cent to online shopping, 2 per cent to online pornography and 1.2 per cent to gambling. The study was published in Asian Journal of Psychiatry in May 2013.

That year, Deepak Goel, psychiatrist with Topiwala National Medical College and B Y L Nair Hospital in Mumbai, found that 0.7 per cent of the 987 students from the city who participated in the study, were Internet addicts. The study was published in Indian Journal of Psychiatry in 2013.

It cannot be a coincidence that India’s first centre to treat Internet addiction has opened in the cyber city of Bengaluru. Since April 2014, when the National Institute of Mental Health Neurosciences (NIMHANS) opened the centre, it has treated 25 children. Manoj Kumar Sharma, associate professor at NIMHANS, says there are still many who are either reluctant to come forward or do not report it due to lack of awareness about treatment facilities.

World wide woe

India is not the only country battling with the addiction. In Iran, 40.7 per cent of the students are addicted to the Internet, according to a study published in Bulletin of Environment, Pharmacology and Life Science in February 2014. About 2.2 per cent of the students suffer from severe addiction.

In the US, which has the highest Internet usage, the American Psychological Associa tion (APA) is trying to understand the disorder and its treatment. So far, APA has only defined Internet Addiction Disorder and says it is a pattern of using the Internet to the extent that it can cause dysfunction and unpleasant internal reactions just in two months. APA has listed seven criteria for diagnosis, which includes tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, using Internet for longer hours than one had initially planned to, a constant desire to control behaviour, spending considerable time on matters related to the Internet, reduction of social, occupational and recreational activities because of Internet use and continued use despite the knowledge of negative effects. An individual showing any three symptoms can be categorised as Internet addict, it says.

The US Navy’s Substance Abuse and Recovery Programme (SARP) recently treated a 31-year-old man, addicted to a particular technology, Google Glass. The patient used Google Glass for 18 to 19 hours a day and exhibited irritability and frustration when he was not able to use it. He also developed an involuntary movement disorder: the forefinger of his right hand would often rise without his knowledge to tap his temple, as if to enable Google Glass. His condition has improved after three months of residential treatment,” writes Andrew Doan, head of addictions and resilience research at SARP, in the September issue of Addictive Behaviours. “It is only a matter of time before research and treatments catch up,” Doan says.

In its effort to contain the addiction, China set up an Internet Addiction Treatment Center in the General Hospital of the Beijing Military Region in 2004, where at least 5,000 youths addicted to the Internet have been treated so far. As per a media report, the hospital, in its five years of existence till 2009, had used electric shock therapy on as many as 3,500 Internet addicted patients. Later, its administration banned this treatment and is now focusing on behavioural modification therapy.

In 2010, the South Korean government announced a national programme to contain the addiction after it realised that more than 2 million children—two in every 10—suffering from Internet addiction.

Simple steps for de-addiction

The 2013 study by Deepak Goel has found a clear relation between psychological distress and addictive use of the Internet. Those excessively using the Internet were suffering from anxiety and depression, notes the study. Researchers in Turkey have also found a similar correlation. They say that for the 15 per cent of students in the country who can be categorised as Internet addicts, surfing the world wide web was a way to overcome a swathe of issues—peer pressure, academic stress, boredom, poor performance in school, depression and negative self-perception.

The study was published in European Journal of Public Health in May 2013.The researchers recommend that Internet addiction can be prevented by building a healthy living environment around them, controlling the computer and Internet usage, promoting book reading and providing treatment to those with a psychological problem.

Sharma says children are more vulnerable because they get exposed to a huge amount of varied content on the Internet and are usually not aware of the risks in accessing it. He mentions one of his patients who used to send almost 300 messages to his friends in a day. He started feeling pain in his finger tips but was unable to stop messaging. Sharma says guardians have a major role in checking these addictions. They need to keep a tab on their children’s activities.

There is also a need for more research and awareness to understand the real picture of Internet addiction in India. While enjoying their Internet activities, children lose control over their routine activities and their performance goes down. They start withdrawing from real world.

A hoax turns true   In 1995, the Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) began as a hoax when a New York-based psychiatrist Ivan Goldberg posted a memo on psycom.net, an online psychiatry bulletin board. It was a prank, making fun of the country's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM), the leading reference for psychiatric research and diagnosis worldwide, and was trying to highlight the growing trend of over-diagnosis among psychiatrists. Surprisingly, a good number of Internet users responded to it, doubting themselves as Internet addicts. The next chapter in the history of IAD was written when Kimberly Young, a psychiatrist, presented her research finding in the meeting of American Psychological Association (APA), the world's largest psychiatric organisation in 1996, and claimed that more than half of the people she had studied were dependent on the Internet. Since then, with the expanding use of the Internet, several countries are reporting addiction to this ubiquitous technology. As per internetlivestats.com, a website providing data of Internet users, around 40 per cent of the world population has an Internet connection. In 1995, it was less than 1 per cent. The number increased 10-fold between 1999 and 2013.

Greening food transport

Cold storage trucks are important to ferry food. A new British technology would use liquid air to power truck refrigeration units. But is it carbon-free?

Illustration: Tarique Aziz

Since antiquity, food items have been transported from place to place. But never at the speed or in the variety or amounts seen in the past few decades. Twenty-first century consumers expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography. Catering to their demands are trucks with refrigeration units that carry perishable freight like vegetables, fruits, meat, milk and fish at specific temperatures via roads. But this comes at a huge cost: diesel, which powers the truck, emits greenhouses gases and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), used as a coolant, have very high global warming potential.

While figures for the emissions released by refrigerator trucks are not known, the entire refrigeration and air-conditioning sector contributes to 8-10 per cent of total global green house gas emissions. A variety of options are thus being developed to reduce emissions from refrigerator trucks. One such alternative is to use cryogenic fuels, which are gases liquidified at very low temperatures. The fuel is typically used in spacecrafts and results in zero carbon emissions.

UK-based Dearman Engine Company is experimenting with two cryogenic fuels—liquid air and liquid nitrogen—to power refrigerator trucks. These trucks are expected to hit the UK’s roads by 2016 (see ‘How Dearman refigeration unit works’).

“A liquid air-fuelled transport refrigeration unit could not only reduce diesel consumption by up to 20 per cent but also eliminate harmful nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from the refrigeration process,” says Caroline Teck, spokesperson for Dearman. “CO2 emissions and operational noise would also be significantly reduced.”

Non-profits have given a red carpet welcome to the technology. Fionnuala Walravens, senior campaigner, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a non-profit in the UK, says the technology is “promising” as “it avoids the need for HFCs”.

The concept of using cryogenic fuels as a clean fuel is not so new and revolutionary, and has been in discussion for long, says Lambert Kupijers, co-chairperson of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pumps Technical Options Committee, 2010 of Montreal Protocol. The Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out substances, including ozone-depleting coolants (see ‘The gas game’, Down To Earth, September 16-30, 2013). According to the report of this committee, “Cryogenic fuel-based refrigeration systems offer low noise, reduced maintenance and outstanding refrigeration performance (fast pull-down), which make them excellent systems for vehicles serving local distribution chains.”

But are cryogenic fuels really so innocuous? An analysis by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) shows otherwise.

Dirty past of cryogenic fuels

Emission factor for a fuel is the amount of CO2emitted while producing and burning one unit of fuel. Though the emission factor for certain fuels, such as diesel and petrol, are pretty much constant across the world, because of their standard extraction process, the factor varies quite a lot for electricity and depends on whether it is generated from thermal power plants or by using renewable sources. So every country has its own emission factor for electricity, based on the percentage of renewable contribution to the country’s power need.

According to CSE, the new refrigeration technology that uses cryogenic fuels would be carbon-efficient only if the electricity used to manufacture the fuels is renewable. In the UK, where around one-third of the electricity is generated from coal, the technology could be marginally better than conventional fuels. But emission factor for cryogenic fuels manufactured in India would be very high—about 80 per cent higher than that of cryogenic fuels manufactured in the UK—because most of the electricity generated in the country still comes from thermal power plants (see ‘Yes for UK, no for India’).

Expensive for India

Dearman is interested in selling the trucks to India. Although it has admitted that the technology is not viable for Indian conditions, it says it is pinning its hopes on the future as it foresees economies moving towards renewable energy. Even then, Dearman may not find a lucrative market for its trucks in India. Unlike the Western world, refrigeration for preservation of food is not a popular practice in India. For instance, in the West, meat is processed, refrigerated and transported, while in India, cattle are transported alive and then slaughtered to prepare meat for cooking. Vegetables are mostly consumed locally.

The technology is also not economically feasible for India. To power the refrigeration unit for one hour, 30 litres of cryogenic fuel would be needed. With one litre costing Rs 25, an hour of refrigeration would cost Rs 750. Powering a refrigeration unit for an hour with diesel would require 3 litres of it, which would cost around Rs 180.

Ashok Mirchandani, managing director of Carrier (Asia Pacific), says, India has a lot of scope for developing cooling technologies. Developed countries have around 1,500 refrigerator trucks per million population, West Asian nations have 300, Latin American countries have 100 to 150, China has 20 whereas India has only five, he adds. According to industry estimates, approximately 104 million tonnes of perishable produce is transported between cities in India each year. Of this, only 4 million tonnes is transported by refrigerated mode.

Instead of taking chances over cryogenic-based cooling technology, India must go for completely green technologies like ammonia-based refrigeration systems and solar refrigeration systems, says Prabhat Ranjan, executive director, Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC). “India being a tropical country with abundant sunlight, exploring solar refrigeration systems would be ideal as it is completely green,” he suggests.

CURRENT AFFAIRS APRIL/26 & 27/2015

CURRENT AFFAIRS APRIL/26 & 27/2015

1. WORLD MALARIA DAY OBSERVED ON 25^TH APRIL:

i. World Malaria Day was observed globally on 25^th April, 2015.

ii. World Malaria Day 2015 was observed with the theme, “Invest in the future, defeat Malaria”.

iii. World Malaria Day was instituted by World Health Organization(WHO) and is among the eight official global public Health Campaigns marked by WHO.

Note: 8 Global Public Health Campaigns marked by WHO are:

a.      World Health Day

b.     World Blood Donor Day

c.      World Immunization Week

d.     World Tuberculosis Day

e.      World No Tobacco Day

f.        World Aids Day

g.      World Hepatitis Day

h.     World Malaria Day

2.   INDIA’S HEALTH CARE PORTAL INAUGURATED:

i.  PM Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s Health Care Portal.

ii. India’s Healthcare portal was inaugurated at the SAARC trade mart in the global exhibition on services.

iii. The Healthcare portal can be seen atwww.indiahealthcaretourism.com

3. RUSSIA AND ARGENTINA SIGNED CO-OPERTION AGREEMENTS:

i. Russia and Argentina have singed co-operation agreements on economic and energy co-operation.

ii. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed the agreement with his counterpart Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia	Argentina
Capital – Moscow Currency – Ruble	Capital – Buenos Aires Currency - Peso

4. INDIA DELIEVERS 3 HELICOPTERS TO AFGHANISTAN:

i. India has delivered 3 Cheetal Helicopters to Afghanistan.

ii. The news that India has delivered 3 unarmed helicopters to Afghanistan was confirmed by the Minister of State for DefenseRao Inderjit Singh.

iii. India will also provide training to Afghan  pilots to use these helicopters.

5.   EARTHQUAKE STRUCKED IN INDIA AND NEPAL:

i. An Earthquake of Magnitude 7.9 was strucked in Nepal andNorth India.

ii. The Epicenter of the Earthquake was in Nepal which experienced the major destruction claiming almost 2000 lives.

iii. The tremors of the Quake were felt in Bihar, Jharkhand, U.P. Rajasthan, M.P., West Bengal, Haryana, Assam and Punjab.

Note: (a)This earthquake was the worst in Himalayan Nation in over 80 years.

      (b) Bihar Government has announced Rs. 4 lakh compensation amount for any life lost due to this earthquake.