Cooking on gas: How harmful is gas cooking in the home?
When you think about air pollution, your mind may conjure up images of smoke billowing out of a car exhaust or smog settling on a city skyline. These outdoor sources of air pollution are dangerous, but did you know that there are plenty of less obvious but equally concerning sources of air pollution that are much closer to home? In fact, some of them are even within it.
I’m privileged to live in a small rural town, so the risks I face from outdoor air pollution sources like transport and industry are relatively low. But recently I’ve become increasingly concerned about a source of air pollution that I – and many people across the country – are exposed to every day.
Like many other rental properties in the UK, my home is fitted with a gas hob. What type of stove the house had installed was pretty low on my list of priorities when I was looking for somewhere to live, and I’d never thought too deeply about the impact it might have on me. But every time I cook a meal, I catch a distinct whiff of that invisible gas being emitted from the hob, and I wonder how bad it really is for me.
As someone who spends their days advocating for cleaner air, I’m no stranger to the health risks of air pollution. But even when you understand the risks in theory, it can be hard to quantify them in your daily life. Air pollution is often spoken about in terms of confusing concentrations and thresholds, and that means little to us as individuals in practice. So, I decided to find out just how bad gas cooking is for myself.
I set up an air quality monitor near my stove, so I could get a clearer picture of what levels of pollution I’m inhaling every time I cook a meal. I focused my monitoring on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), given that gas cookers are a major source of this harmful air pollutant in the home.
Research tells us that typical gas use in the kitchen can produce indoor NO2 levels that exceed World Health Organization air quality guidelines, and my hob was no exception. I was shocked to find that I was regularly recording levels of NO2 that exceeded these guidelines while cooking.
What shocked me further was finding out that measures I had been taking to reduce the levels of air pollution I’m exposed to when cooking could be making it worse. There are no windows in my kitchen, so I rely on the hood fitted above my stove to help filter out the harmful air pollutants produced when I cook. Like many people, I’d never thought to “take a look under the hood”, and I had blindly trusted it to do its job. That was until my air quality monitor started recording higher levels of NO2 when the hood was turned on. Yes, you read that right – turned on!
In disbelief, I took a closer look, and realised that my recirculation hood – as I later learned it was called – didn't even send the polluted air outside, instead simply feeding it back into the poorly ventilated room.
After doing this monitoring project, I started reading what the latest research said about gas cooking, and I realised I wasn’t alone. Non-profit energy efficiency group CLASP recently completed Europe's largest ever in-home monitoring study of the air pollution produced by gas cookers, installing monitors in hundreds of homes across Europe.
They found that the World Health Organization daily limit value for NO2 exposure was broken in most UK homes using gas hobs and/or gas ovens. NO2 levels were around twice as high in kitchens and living rooms using gas appliances compared to those using electric appliances, and significantly higher in bedrooms.
Their study also found that the presence of cooker hoods in the home had little impact on indoor air quality. Households with both recirculating hoods and those vented to outside saw no significant reduction in cooking-related indoor air pollution, with some households even reporting higher levels of air pollution when the hoods were in use.
Breaching these World Health Organization limit values for NO2 increases health risks: gas cooking is linked to asthma in children and adults, reductions in lung function and respiratory illness in adults, as well as dementia and cognitive decline in adults.
Given that over half of British homes cook on gas, these findings are very concerning – especially for children or poorer households that are less able to afford proper maintenance and are more likely to be renting or living in homes with old gas appliances.
There are currently no regulations or policies in place to directly mitigate the health and environmental risks of gas cooking in UK households, and awareness of these harms remains low among the public.
So, what should be done? To start with, consumers need to be provided with information about the harms of gas cooking so they can make informed decisions about which appliances to invest in for their health and the planet’s. But many households like mine who cook on gas either cannot afford to switch to electric or don’t have the option - that’s why it’s crucial that the UK Government provides support for households to switch to cleaner and greener alternatives.
Moving forward, I’m going to be more conscious of the air pollution source within my home and I’m going to aim to start constructive conversations outside of it, so that one day appliances that are safer for people and planet are the norm in the UK.