While construction work is at full swing at our site, we heard a rather odd news. Government of Pakistan has ordered to shut down the Brick Kilns across Punjab; for a period of 70 days. The reason behind was, pollution generated by these brick kiln is a major cause of Smog covering major cities of Punjab in November, December.
That got us curious. How much impact these brick kilns have on the environment. Is shutting them down the only option? How the needs of construction industry will be met? What about the people working in those brick kilns?
These all are genuine questions. We did some research and found some answers. We thought of sharing those answers here for the curious minds like us. Let’s discuss them one by one.
Brick Kilns and Smog! What??
Brick Kiln, when running, produces a lot of smoke. You might have seen a long chimney throwing dark clouds of smoke up in the air. Imagine inhaling that smoke for a few days.
Fog is nothing new to any of us. As soon as the winter starts, fog spreads its wings and takes over everything. Grounds, roads, jungles everything. Now combine those toxic clouds of smoke and the fog and you get yourselves a toxic form of fog, i.e. Smog.
Fog alone isn’t that bad (other then the accidents on roads), but smog is very injurious to health. It is a mixture of poisonous gases that can damage our eyes and lungs, leading to several diseases.
The smoke from brick kiln isn’t the only culprit, burning of crop stubble and vehicles on road also incorporate to the increasing smog.
Is shutting them down the only option?
For now, Yes! In the long run, No! Brick kilns operating in our country were built using traditional methods and technology has evolved now. New method, called “Zig-zag method” suggests to change the internal structure of kiln into zig-zag and use of air blower. It can significantly reduce, not only the emissions but also the coal consumption. Resulting product, i.e. the brick quality also increases significantly.
Unfortunately converting the traditionally built brick kilns to modern zig-zag ones isn’t cheap. Upgrading one brick kiln will cost around $15,000 to $20,000.
Unless government facilitates the brick kiln owner in some way, they are not yet ready to upgrade their kilns by paying a large sum of money, although it will improve their product too. But for now, shutting the kilns down seems to be the only option.
What about the Construction Industry?
Now a days, most of the commercial construction doesn’t rely on the clay bricks. They prefer cement block which are a lot cheaper and easier to make.
As far as brick kilns are concerned, not all are shutting down. Out of total 19,000 kilns, only some percentage in Punjab are closed. So the supply will be decreased, but not stopped at-least, which is a good thing.
What about the labor working on those kilns?
Unfortunately they have to suffer. Shutting the kilns down means they lose their job for 2 months. An average of 150-200 people work at each kiln, they will not get paid for two months.
This is a small price to pay. Hundreds and hundreds of people reach hospital every year because of smog, including children and elderly people. The only win-win situation will be the government; facilitating the brick kiln owners to upgrade their kilns to a safer, environment-friendly technology. This way brick kilns will work throughout the year and smog will be reduced too.
Our Progress
As explained in our previous post, raft foundation has been built. We are ready to start with the brick foundation. More on that later…
