Fast Company "World Changing Ideas" article:
"In London, cooking emissions account for 10% of particulate pollution. In megacities like China, that share can go up to 22%. A recent study out of the University of Birmingham found that these emissions remain in the atmosphere for up to several days—not breaking up and dispersing sooner like previously thought—contributing to poor air quality and impacting human health. “If these particles have longer residence times in the atmosphere, they will travel further and affect air quality in a wider area over a longer period of time,” says Christian Pfrang, a researcher at the University of Birmingham who worked on that study, over email.
Cooking emissions don’t only affect the outside air; they can also hang around inside. “These cooking emissions will have longer residence times wherever they are—so if homes are poorly ventilated, this will significantly impact on indoor air quality in particular in the kitchen/dining area,” Pfrang says. With COVID-19 lockdowns forcing people inside their homes more, and maybe spurring them to cook at home more often, this means people could be exposed to much higher levels of indoor air pollution than usual.
In London, cooking emissions account for 10% of particulate pollution. In megacities like China, that share can go up to 22%. A recent study out of the University of Birmingham found that these emissions remain in the atmosphere for up to several days—not breaking up and dispersing sooner like previously thought—contributing to poor air quality and impacting human health. “If these particles have longer residence times in the atmosphere, they will travel further and affect air quality in a wider area over a longer period of time,” says Christian Pfrang, a researcher at the University of Birmingham who worked on that study, over email.
Cooking emissions don’t only affect the outside air; they can also hang around inside. “These cooking emissions will have longer residence times wherever they are—so if homes are poorly ventilated, this will significantly impact on indoor air quality in particular in the kitchen/dining area,” Pfrang says. With COVID-19 lockdowns forcing people inside their homes more, and maybe spurring them to cook at home more often, this means people could be exposed to much higher levels of indoor air pollution than usual."