Protecting Health and the Planet With Clean Cookstoves
“Josephine Adzrolo sat on a stool in front of her mud-brick home, stirring banku, a fermented paste of corn and cassava served with soup or okra stew. She heated the traditional mixture using a typical cooking fuel—charcoal—an energy source linked to serious global health risk.”
But with her family waiting for lunch, Adzrolo cooked outdoors using a stove specially designed with a ceramic liner to retain heat. Although the scrap-metal exterior gave it a rough-hewn look, the cookstove was rated 40 percent more energy efficient than the traditional stoves used in the area.”
For Adzrolo, the most obvious advantage was a practical one. “It saves a lot of charcoal,” she said. “I can cook plenty of banku and soup.”
Toyola Energy, the five-year-old Ghana business that made the stove, is aiming for far-reaching benefits as well. By using heat-conserving equipment outdoors, instead of more traditional cookstoves indoors, Adzrolo and others can avoid the high levels of toxic cooking smoke that have ravaged people’s health throughout the developing world.”