KATHMANDU, July 6: Gorkha earthquake and its aftershocks damaged and destroyed more than half a million buildings across the country that included more than 25,000 buildings and monuments. As the nation engages in rebuilding efforts, brick industry, one of the victims of the calamity, is adopting environment friendly technologies in rebuilding the brick kiln factories that were damaged by the earthquake and aftershocks.
Bricks like other construction material are crucial in the rebuilding and construction process. With over 100 damaged brick kilns within Kathmandu valley of the total damaged 350 across the country, meeting the construction needs remains a major challenge for this industry. While industry stakeholders remain confident of meeting this challenge, they now are focusing on making brick kilns environment friendly.Around 800 brick kilns across the nation were operating before the earthquake. The Federation of Nepal Brick Industries (FNBI) puts the loss the industry faced by the earthquake to be around 1.2 billion rupees while claiming that around 90 percent of the brick kilns that were operating prior to the earthquake, have come to a complete halt. Of them, around 70 percent of them are in need of complete renovation and this compulsion is being used by the stakeholders as an opportunity for making the industry as environment friendly.
After transportation, brick kilns are considered as the second major contributor of short-lived climatic pollutants (SLCPs) such as black carbon along with a range of other pollutants. Soot particles emitted from Kathmandu brick kilns contribute at least 40 percent to the valley's total pollution. Environmentalists claim that Nepal's bricks kiln industry can address its 'pollution imitator' image by adopting environment friendly modern brick production processes and technologies.
Suyesh Prajapati, an expert on clean brick firing and renewable energy technologies, said that adoption of environment friendly technologies by damaged and functioning brick factories will offer great benefits in conserving environment and in reducing the industry's energy consumption level. The approach, he informed, included structural modification and adoption modern technologies against existing traditional brick manufacturing methods used by most Nepal's brick kilns.
"In the course of installing and renovating new brick kilns, new improved designs should be included for more absorption of carbon that subsequently leads to least emission of pollutants into the atmosphere," said Prajapati. He claimed that modern innovative designs have four-fold benefits: earthquake resistant, energy efficient, lower carbon emission and labor friendly.
Over 90 percent of the brick kilns in Nepal are using fixed chimney bull's trench kiln (FCBTK), a popular technology that is commonly used across South Asia. FCBTK was introduced to turn the traditional bull trench kilns to make the whole brick production process more efficient and less pollutant. This model is based on continuous flow of fire in the direction of air flow. Prajapati suggests the use of zig-zag fire burning technology instead can turn the whole mechanism more efficient and labor friendly.
"In this technology, bricks inside the chimney are placed in a zig-zag order unlike the traditional up down pattern," he said adding that the most of the carbon is stuck on the brick layer itself leading to lesser emission in the environment. "Along with that the zig-zag positioning of bricks help in storing the heat emitted within the furnace. This eventually leads to lesser consumption of energy resources to bake the bricks."
A new challenge a head
Stakeholders, experts and concerned authorities are putting resources together to not only restoring brick industry to its original shape but more in transforming it into environment friendly through the use of modern technology.
During a recent program focused on ways to reconstruct damaged brick kilns, Minister of Industry, Mahesh Basnet emphasized the need of reconstruction and renovations of the damages brick kilns in a more environment friendly way.
"Now after the quake, we have encountered a new challenge that is rebuilding the damaged building and monuments. The situation is serious as most of the brick factories have shut down and are in a need of immediate reconstruction. We believe there will not be any scarcity of bricks needed in rebuilding," said Basnet.
He called on brick manufacturers for adopting environment friendly technologies in the days ahead. "Now the brick operators should be more cautious as they should embrace more environment friendly ways of making bricks."
Responding to the call, Mahendra Bahadur Chitrakar, chairperson of FNBI said that the federation was in discussion with stakeholders in adopting environment friendly technologies during the rebuilding of damaged brick kilns and in addressing the increased demand of bricks, while speaking at the same program. "Presently, there is dire need for bricks. We have been always concerned over the impact brick kilns on environment and now look forward to adopt improved ways of producing bricks," he said.
As per government's preliminary assessment, over 7, 00,000 buildings have collapsed during the quake and it takes around 30,000 bricks to build a normal building. Going by the math, there is a demand for 21 billion bricks for the whole reconstruction process. However, government states that there is a need of at least 12 billion brick to raise the damaged buildings. FNBI claims that Nepal produces around 3 billion bricks every year.
With the four-fold increase in the demand of bricks and with the industry forced to stop for three months by the earthquake and the monsoon rain, meeting the demand remains a challenge for the brick industry.