A $5 Box to Save the World?

Sometimes the most important inventions are the simplest. An inexpensive and amazingly simple box could improve the lives on hundreds of millions and reduce wood burning and habitat loss.

Myra Per-Lee at InventorsSpot.com reports:

"The device, which cost Bøhner $5 to make, would decrease pollution, deforestation, energy costs, and about 1.3 million deaths a year in Africa alone caused by wood-burning related respiratory illnesses. The life-saving estimate does not even include the number of deaths resulting from contaminated water.

The Kyoto Box is targeted to the three billion people who use firewood to cook. Estimates are that each family that uses wood-burning methods of cooking releases almost 2 tons of carbon dioxide per year into the atmosphere. The Kyoto Box consists of two cardboard boxes, one inside the other, insulated with straw or newspaper between them. The inside of the box is painted in black and the flaps of the boxes are covered in aluminum foil. A transparent layer of acrylic then covers the box. The stove can boil water and bake, but not fry, according to Bøhmer, as the temperature required to fry would burn the box." See full article.