Indoor Air Pollution Control

Indoor air pollution has occurred since prehistoric times when people moved to live indoors and fire was brought into closed shelters for cooking and space heating 1. Today, indoor air pollution caused by burning of traditional solid fuels such as woodfuel, agricultural residues, and dried animal dung in unvented cookstoves in rural areas of developing countries is not much different from that of the past. Problems associated with indoor air pollution, however, have developed a new dimension, because of energy-efficient measures (tightly constructed buildings, increased insulation, and reduced ventilation) implemented since the early 1970s in response to the oil crisis. Tightly constructed buildings, for instance, reduce the amount of fresh air for dilution and for purging out of pollutants, which, in turn, builds up high levels of toxic substances indoors. The fact that indoors air quality is not an exact reflection of the ambient air quality was recognized only recently. Scientific evidence has indicated that the air within homes and other public and office buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air. Public concern about indoor air pollution effects on health has thus attracted expanded research on the topic.