For much of the world’s population, gathering fuel to cook food is a dangerous proposition, and smoke from cookstoves poses a serious health threat. A more efficient and clean wood-burning cookstove — developed by the Vashon Island-based non-profit BURN Design Lab in close collaboration with University of Washington mechanical engineers — will reduce the amount of fuel families need to collect or buy by 55 percent. It will also reduce the exposure of these women and children to the harmful particulate pollution produced by traditional cooking flames.
The new wood-burning cookstove will be manufactured in BURN Manufacturing’s factory in Nairobi, Kenya beginning this summer — thanks to a recent $800,000 investment fromUnilever and Acumen — and sold across East Africa.