Since the rise of civilization bricks have been playing an important role for construction of houses and other infrastructure. As in our country we do not have any unlimited source of rocks, brick remains the major constructional material in our country for any construction. The prime material is top-soil from agricultural lands, river floodplains are used for making the green bricks and in the main source of energy to burn those bricks using the low graded coal and domestic fire wood. From the raw material to the end of the process of brick producing in our country is not friendly to our soil, air, environment and human health. In this modern age, we are still using age-old-technology in brick manufacturing industries. This process is threatening to our sustainable environment and development.

 

Bangladesh as a developing country ranked as the fourth largest brick producer in the world. Bangladesh Brick Manufacturing Owners Association (BBMOA) claims that there are approximately 8,000 brick fields that manufacture bricks of different grades in the country. Moreover annually these kilns produce around 23 billion bricks, which not only producing bricks but also producing poisoning air pollutants such as carbon dioxide, fly ash, sulphur dioxide, other particular matters etc and degrading our agricultural land and forest.

 

Bangladesh is a developing country with a large number of population which is rapidly growing. Therefore demand for bricks is increasing parallel with rapid growth of public infrastructure and real estate to meet the need. In this situation, the brick manufacturer industries have been mushrooming all over the country with heavy concentration at the edges of cities and towns. Most of them are small capacity kilns with outdated and antiquated technologies. Thus brick kilns become one of the major sources of greenhouse gas in Bangladesh by emitting 6 to 9 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. From the coal burning process the kilns is not very efficient and exhausts from these kilns contain fly ash, volatile compounds, other particular matter and high concentrations of CO and SOx.

 

Additional negative impacts include loss of large amount of farmlands and other natural habitats for producing of brick kilns fields, loss of cultivation state from extracting fertile top-soils as brick making raw material and deforestation by burning domestic firewood as a cheaper alternative to coal.

 

According to report result from Department of Environment (DoE), on the total emissions from the clusters of brick kilns in the Greater Dhaka region for 2013 projected at 53,333 tons of PM10, 17,557 tons of PM2.5, 59,221 tons of SOx (DOE, 2013). Along with fly ash, high concentration of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and other volatile organic compounds also released into the air from this kilns which are toxic to our health and our environment.

 

In the pollutants, exposure to sulphur dioxide in the air linked with reduced lung function, increased prevalence of respiratory symptoms and diseases, irritation of the eyes, nose and throat and early mortality and due to poor kiln design that costs in incomplete combustion of coal, could also cause undesirable health effects in long term as like lungs cancer or throat cancer or damage to central nervous system and shortness of breath.

 

American Lung Association (ALA) found in their research that, for the PM in air premature death rate increased three times higher than the previous studies. Child mortality rate also increased for air pollution (ALA, 2006). Eventually from a recent US research study, it is found that PM2.5 more harmful that its size is so small that allows it to penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream and through it can circulate to different organs and cause inflammation and inflammation increases the insulin resistance and enough to set in diabetes, so this air pollutant can be a cause to diabetes.

 

These pollutants are not only harmful to human health but also to other animals and plants and threat to our environment as all of them are GHGs. To bring the changes into the ancient techniques in brick producing process can’t happen in one night but for a better and sustainable development with a sustainable environment it must change. In today’s date there are many new technologies invented in brick manufacturing which is not aware by everyone. Though government has taken a step toward improvement of environment by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) issued a directive on 20 September, 2010, requiring conversion of Fixed Chimney Kilns (120 m) to newer and efficient technologies i e improved Zig-Zag Kiln, Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln, Hybrid Hoffman Kiln, and Tunnel Kiln within two years of issuing the directive.

 

Under this directive, Brick Manufacturers only using the improved Zig-Zag Kiln, Vertical Shaft Kiln, Hybrid Hoffman Kiln or Tunnel Kiln technologies will get the permission for operation.  On the other side there are more support we can get from World Bank Group project partnered with the Industrial and Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited (IIDFC), a private non-banking financial institution, to provide financing and technical help for nine Hybrid Hoffman Kiln (HHK) brick kilns in Bangladesh.

 

Distinguishing the need for producing bricks for our sustainable development and better environment the brick manufacturing process need to operate with smart technologies while minimizing environmental impact and contributing towards economic development. It is now essential to establish environmental brick manufacturing facilities in Bangladesh. These technologies are expected to produce high quality bricks using less energy and decrease environmental pollution.